septimo distentione
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: Of all of them, there's only one set of Chosen in history who've destroyed a Demon Lord, one timeline that's holding the rest of the worlds in tact. But when the other worlds slowly fall, the Chosen through time and space collect at the final battleground...with the remaining six Demon Lords.
1. A Seal on the Blazing Sky

**A/N: **My CampNaNo fic, along with my pride and joy planning wise. Never planned anything so thoroughly before. :D Also, a big thank you to Aiko (Aiko Isari) for beta-reading for me, even during Camp when she had her own fic to work on. Thank you so much Aiko!

This fic is also written for two challenges at the Digimon Fanfiction Challenges Forum: the Testing Your Patience Challenge, where I pre-write four chapters before beginning posting. Thanks to CampNaNo, I've managed that so now it's time to upload. I'll be updating once a month and working on this during NaNoWriMo as well, so hopefully the pre-written chapters will last a while. I'll be uploading chapters on the first of every month (AEST time) so keep an eye out for those.

The other challenge is the Mega-Prompts Challenge, using writing prompts #031 – write a multichip with each chapter over 10k words. That's pretty much self-explanatory.

And the last thing I need to mention before you get started in reading the fic you clicked on the link for, is the context. It's a massive crossover: Adventure, ZeroTwo, Tamers, Frontier, Savers, Xros Wars (pre-Hunters), and Digimon Next, and contains mentions of Wonderswan, C'mon Digimon and Digimon V-Tamer as well. Not all at once, since that's a lot of characters and settings to juggle, but by chapter six all the main worlds will have been seen at least once.

And that's it from me by way of author's note. Enjoy, and tell me what you think. Thoughts, theories – I'm sure in 10k words there'll be something going through your mind. :D

**septimo distentione**

**.**

When darkness was one's prison and silence one's song, the slightest change was as profound as a trumpet's call. And he'd awaited that change for an amount of time undefinable in his unchanging cell: that black substance that clogged all sense of sight and sound and touch save the slight hum of water within his ears: all he could define of his jail.

But senses were useless when knowledge existed: exact and undisputable. The Dark Ocean had swallowed him into his cell and there he'd remained, waiting for the day that barrier would erode away and let him unleash his flame of hatred and destruction again. Time was unimportant when his prison remained: standing, and intact. His hatred was a companion that would walk with him till the end of time and beyond. He'd existed beyond the Dark Ocean and would exist once it bowed to time and crumbled.

Then the time of that world that thought it could hold him would end, and his clock would start ticking again. He couldn't say when, or how; just that the natural decay that came from time would eventually erode the world that held him captive, the world those naïve Chosen Children had thought powerful enough to seal him away for eternity.

What little they knew; he'd existed before their world and would continue to exist beyond it. Even a millennia in captivity was nothing to a being like himself. Indeed, it felt as though his sentence had passed in a blink of an eye when he felt it: that subtle shift in the balance that promised a dramatic change.

And that change came. Slow, perhaps, it was for a being tied to space but he existed beyond that and, to him, it was as though someone had torn a band-aid off a bleeding wound and let it spew out that red and sticky yellow and little dots of black. Holes opened up in the darkness and his heart burned with relish for the freedom that came with it. Fire gushed out of those holes and the soft lapping of waves that had become his silence was quickly drowned by a screeching that reached into his bones.

His wrath was old: so old he'd forgotten its origins, but it had slumbered and awoken, it was as fresh as the day it had been brought in to that world.

And that world opened up in the sky. Dots, forming shapes. Buildings. Machines. Trees. Grass. Living beings.

For a moment he just drank in the sight of them – and then it was the sight of them burning he was drunk on.

**.**

**Chapter 1  
A Seal on the Blazing Sky**

**.**

There was a boy lost in his dreams. Once, it had been a regular thing but his heart had since settled. And in that new groove he'd found had been a peace he'd slumbered happily within. Occasionally, he still dreamt. Strange, normal things like monsters under the bed, a girl he looked towards or those deep wounds he still had trouble letting go of. But that was normal, and most of his nights would pass in a dreamless haze.

But something was different that night. The dream was unlike his recent ones: not happy and light, nor was it teasing out an old fear or wound he tried to recover from. Or, at least, he didn't think it was. He could not recall a time he'd seen the sky so deep a shade of red.

He was not a poetic child: logic, reasoning…that was his forte and poetry brought about metaphors too strange and intangible despite how profound they were. And a burning sky was fodder for poetry if he ever saw it, but he could think of very few concrete reasons for such a thing, nor could he think or any times he'd witnessed such a phenomena before.

And yet, he was staring at a blazing sky: clouds swallowed up by grey and orange and red and so thick his body felt as though it bore a huge weight despite hovering in the air. Below him were clouds as well: thick clouds he could almost dare to walk upon if they didn't spit sparks like heated coal. His body burned simply from the proximity of it, and it was a wonder he hadn't fallen from the sky already or burnt to a crisp from the heat.

But it was also a wonder he could float in the sky at all, even in a dream. His dreams had never been so nonsensical, even in an innocent childhood far off. Monsters under the bed had just been small lights in the darkness, staring out. The long stretch of desert had been one he'd walked before, in different frames of mind. But the burning sky was something new, something…strange.

Something that prodded him quite suddenly and sharply as though he were a lump of coal like the clouds. He gasped and jolted within his blankets, the image of the blazing sky becoming transparent as reality – Wormmon's bright blue looking upon him in worry – claimed its place in his vision. The worried digimon was on his pillow: uncurled, antennae drooping. Ken ran a hand down his back: those firm cool scales he could always find comfort in. Behind him, Ken could see the computer he'd left on overnight playing through the slideshow of photos of his friends that was his screensaver. Daisuke shooting a goal. Takeru chasing his hat in the wind. Iori practising kendo. Miyako and Hikari in new outfits at the mall. And behind them were his beige curtains, looking almost orange in the morning light.

Ken blinked away the fuzziness of sleep that still clung to his vision, then tried to sit up carefully. Wormmon shifted as well to give him room. The sheets had tangled themselves some time during the night, which hindered him, and the worm digimon's numerous appendages were more a hindrance than a help with tangled bed sheets. So were bunk beds, and usually being an immobile sleeper: most nights, Ken would settle down in a position and wake up the next morning the same and stiff all over. It was uncommon for his sheets to dislodge themselves at all, and them tangling around his legs like so was more unusual still. But he got them off without falling off the bed and while he wouldn't get a perfect grade on grace, his attempt was good enough. The desire to have everything a picture of perfection had faded away as the influence of the Dark Seed had dulled within him. Being free was more important than being graceful.

Once he was sitting up, Wormmon crawled over the pillow and to his knee. 'You were having a bad dream,' he said, worried: something they both recognised, but it was the crux of further discussion and still worth saying. 'You were shivering like you were cold, but you were sweating as well. And you tossed and turned a lot in your sleep as well.'

Ken felt his forehead: slick and stinging in the cold winter air, and colder still when he pulled his hand away and stared at the slight sheen spread on his palm. His pyjama top and pants clung stubbornly to him as well, he noticed then. And goosebumps ran along his arms and legs – and the moment the thought registered within his head, he pulled the covers over the both of them in a sudden chill.

He didn't know how he'd missed how _cold_ it was when he'd woke – or rather, how cold the still fresh sweat made him feel. The sheets were a little wet as well, but sleeping beneath them all night had still left them warm and it was comforting to huddle underneath with Wormmon on his knee. Wormmon wasn't as cold as Ken was; digimon had different sensitivities to the weather than humans did, and he wasn't covered in sweat like his partner was. Worry was what plagued him the most: worry for the boy who'd had a nightmare that rivalled those ones he'd left behind years ago.

For himself, Ken let the warmth beneath the covers and Wormmon's comforting presence wash over him. The image of the burning sky dulled behind his eyes until it became the pinkish-orange of an innocent sunrise – and yet, in the back of his mind, Ken knew there was something foreboding still: something that clung to him more than irrationalities commonly did.

But why was it he hadn't felt fear at the sight of that burning sky? Or when he found himself in the clouds, held there by nothing. A strange dream that had been. He'd been burning, but slowly – too slowly for fear to clench his heart and instead it had been a sort of morbid fascination with his state. He could have slowly melted but, feeling no pain nor fear, it was something he could have watched and tried to rationalise until his existence had been reduced to nothing.

Funny how it frightened him now, in retrospect: chilling him like he'd shivered in the throes of his dream. Or maybe it had chilled him then as well, and coupling with the heat of the burning sky it had made both extremes bearable –

He shook his head. He'd almost forgotten the most important thing: that it had been a dream, and not reality. Wormmon's legs dug into his pyjama bottom and Ken drew him even closer, so the digimon sat upon his chest instead.

'Ken?' his partner asked, worry still clouding his tone. 'Are you alright? Do you want to talk about your dream?'

'I'm fine,' Ken mumbled into blankets and Wormmon's smooth skin. 'My dream…was a bit strange, but I'm fine.'

'You're still shivering,' Wormmon pointed out, in prime position to feel the vibrations that resulted.

Ken laughed a little at that: partially forced, but somewhat naturally as well. 'It's cold.' He was yet to hear Wormmon complain about a winter in the human world – even if he'd only had one experience prior to this one to speak of. Luckily, that didn't seem to detach from the experiences of snuggling under heavy blankets, or curling up in front of a heater, or letting hot soup slip down his throat, or relaxing in a slightly too warm bath.

'It is?' Wormmon relaxed a little against Ken's chest.

'It is. It's winter after all. We might even get snow in a few days.'

'Oh, goodie.' Wormmon enjoyed watching the snow drift from the clouds. His body wasn't made for walking in it; his legs were too small. Watching from the window or the balcony or Ken's shoulder though was enough for him. 'Maybe now?'

'Probably not.' The laugh was more natural now, and the goosebumps were creeping away from the blanket warmth. 'But we can look; we need to get up at some point anyway.'

He would have been up already too, if he'd had plans for the day. Luckily, it was the winter holidays and he'd finished off his Christmas shopping while his friends scrambled for a few last minute presents to find. That allowed him to switch his alarm off and sleep as long as he dared. It was too early for such a day but he was awake now, and so was Wormmon, and lying in bed after sleep wasn't something he did particularly well. Wormmon was restless now too, eager to see the sky and whether it was heavy yet with snow – and Ken was eager for something too: a shower to wash off the rapidly drying sweat. It was starting to feel uncomfortable.

Wormmon moved to his shoulder and they climbed down from the bed together. The winter cold hit Ken again but he ignored it. He'd put the little heater in his room on later if he needed it, but he needed a shower and change of clothes first. And breakfast perhaps. He had the extension cord still, and it wouldn't be the first winter day they'd enjoyed steaming pancakes and soup out in the balcony together.

Wormmon approved wholeheartedly when Ken suggested it; both of them loved sweet things and Ken's mother had brought a new jar of honey just that weekend. 'I'll start on the batter,' he volunteered: perhaps his favourite part of cooking. Ken was more than happy to agree; he could handle the stove once he'd had a quick shower.

And it was quick, because the moment the warm spray of water hit him he remembered his dream again, almost as though it was trying to point something out to him. The problem was that burning skies held no significance to him: not like deserts that stretched further than the eye could see or bubbles rising to the sky along with happy memories. Even the feeling it left behind was different: not something that made his heart clench in fear, but simply made him uncomfortable. But, somehow, that uncomfortable feeling was more unbearable than the fear.

Wormmon was waiting for him in the kitchen, the batter smoother than Ken could ever hope to make it and the buttered pan waiting. His mother had been able to teach the digimon more about cooking than she had her son; Ken simply hadn't had the interest in culinary arts that Wormmon did. He could cook though, and Wormmon's eager eyes drew him quickly to the pan and away from nagging thoughts.

Half an hour later, they had a high stack of round pancakes that Ken was carrying and a jar of honey with a spoon that was Wormmon's baggage to the balcony. They never made it there though; the moment Ken pulled back the curtain in his room the sight of a blotched red sky greeted him: that burning sky from his dream.

**.**

Daisuke was a late riser even at the best of times, and the holidays only served to reinforce that. He still had Christmas shopping to do, but he left that after lunch like he always did. He'd convinced Takeru and Hikari to do the same; three minds were better than one after all, and they knew the elder generation of Chosen better than him despite the years they'd all spent together.

He hadn't planned on getting up before midday and his sister the same, but the insistent beeping of his D-terminal drew him out of his lazy dream. It was an inconsequential one – one of those that fled the moment his mind registered reality: the snoring of the small blue digimon curled in the crook of his arm, the whirring of the portable heater next door his sister had left on overnight – and the beeping that had disturbed his sleep.

He felt blindly and Chibimon stirred by his other elbow and sat up. 'What's going on?' he asked drowsily. 'Turn that off.'

Daisuke forced his eyes open, looking around for his D-terminal. He spotted it half-poking out of the red jacket he'd worn the day before and grabbed it. It silenced the moment he opened its screen and opened the mail waiting for him.

He blinked at the name. Ken knew better than to send him anything in a morning there wasn't school or a meeting at Koushiro's place. And the message was even odder. 'Look at the sky,' he repeated. 'What in the world?'

Chibimon looked equally blank, and if the message hadn't been from Ken (or Iori, even less likely to play a prank), he'd have discarded it as a hoax and gone back to sleep. But it _was_ Ken, and however nonsensical it sounded he followed the request, stumbling over to his windows and yanking the curtains back.

He hadn't had time to come up with a plausible theory for such a message, but he didn't think he'd have managed one close to the truth anyway. The sky was splattered with crimson: above and beyond the red that seeped into it in sunrise. It almost looked, to him, like someone had torn holes in the sky and set fire to what lay beyond it: as he watched those patches of red lightened and darkened, flickering like a dark candle's glow.

'Why is the sky like that?' Chibimon asked, confused but not particularly worried. As far as things went, he was still a newcomer to the human world and less familiar with all its phenomenon's than the humans who lived there. 'I haven't seen that before.'

'Yeah,' Daisuke said, staring at how the cloud tips became black and shrunk away from the patches of red. 'I haven't seen anything like it either.'

His D-terminal beeped and flashed with a sudden influx of new messages. Checking, he realised Ken had messaged not only him but their entire group, and now the others were responding. Quicker than he could read, the messages came: comments, replies, all forwarded to everyone. Most of the initial ones were the same: shock at the state in the sky.

'None of the others know what's going on,' Daisuke said, stealing another peak at the sky. It stared back, perpetually unchanged. He returned to the messages. 'Hey, how do you feel when you look at it?'

Chibimon stared intently out the window. 'Like…I don't know.'

'That's what Wormmon said too.' Daisuke tapped in a reply. 'And Tailmon.'

'But they're smarter than me,' Chibimon protested, looking at his partner.

'Well, they said they felt uncer-' He cut himself off, reading a particular email from Iori. 'Iori says his mother can't see it.'

Chibimon's eyes went wide. 'But it's so…_red_.'

Daisuke agreed; the ugly blotches in the sky seemed unmistakable to him, once the curtain was drawn back. But if Iori's mother couldn't see it – 'Nee-chan!' he yelled, thumping on the wall beside him: the wall that divided his and his sister's rooms.

There was muffled cursing and the sound of shuffling and a door opening. His door followed, and a tousled haired Jun poked her head in. 'What?' she asked irritably. 'It's just before eight; you're not up this early on school days you know.'

Daisuke hadn't noticed the time, nor was it particularly important in this setting. 'Look at the sky,' he said instead, pointing at the patches of flame.

Jun gave him an odd look then came in, peering through the window. 'What?' she asked. 'It's winter; there isn't supposed to be much blue in the sky.'

Daisuke stared at her; she believed that. But he could still see the red in the sky, and from the emails that kept coming, so could he.

'So no red blotchy things?' he checked, just to be sure.

Mystified, Jun shook her head. Daisuke sent a message to the others, who'd checked with whatever family members were at home and found out much the same. Then another message came: from Koushiro who'd been informed somewhere along the line, calling them to his place.

**.**

From the Digital World, the scene of the burning sky was even clearer: too clear. Every inhabitant of that world could see it: from the Ultimate digimon who laid claim to those very skies to the Fresh, newly hatched. The four Gods could see it: the azure dragon who raised his bearded face from within the sea to cast his sorrowful gaze, the white tiger that sniffed the stirring fear and lust for blood descending, the red bird of the south that flashed his own burning feathers to the sky in anger and defiance, and the black tortoise of the north whose both heads cried in sorrow.

Even Gennai, beneath the light of guidance that cloaked his lake, could see the ugly blotches of hate in the sky. And he lamented the sight: he was one of those few who had expected it, but still it was a sorrowful sight. Sorrowful, because it marked the beginning of a great and terrible war…a war that brought together the disconnected worlds and times in what could be the hallowed grounds of their slaughter. He remembered _that_ prophecy well: a prophecy alongside many other seemingly hopeless ones that had been averted.

But this was one that had already progressed beyond an easily stoppable point. Stopping it early meant stopping it at the route…and twice they'd let the demon escape. It was the one battle the Chosen had failed to win. A battle they hadn't been able to win – and they'd hoped the powers of the other world would keep that sin in check, but it had not.

Hooves hammered at his door: Centalmon. Gennai opened the door to him, and the grave guardian of the temple of prophecies knelt down. 'The sky is burning, he said gravely. 'The courtroom has appeared above the temple.'

'I see.' He had expected as much, expected it since he'd first heard of the catastrophe to come and the hope for averting it. But he had hoped, and even believed, it wouldn't come. The Chosen had accomplished such miracles, in both worlds – and yet defeating a Demon Lord had proved to be beyond them. It was beyond the Digital World as well – and the Dark Ocean, for that fire in the sky could only mean Demon had broken out of his jail.

'It was only a matter of time.' Gennai hitched up his robe and climbed upon the other's back. 'Ride, my friend. Let us try to find some hope.'

And Centalmon ran, across land and water like no other steed could run. His destination was far from whence he'd come, but need gave him speed and the sky had not changed its ugly glare by the time they arrived. The great shadow of a winged dragon awaited them, blocking the sky save the red tinge it gave to him. They drew closer still, and Gennai, after a long time, was graced with UlforceV-dramon's majestic might.

Centalmon stumbled and fell to his knees as he slowed before the gate – except it was no longer a gate that guarded the labyrinth that lay beneath, but a palace door that opened up to a large and magnificent hall. Gennai gracefully dismounted and UlforceV-dramon landed and contracted his wings, dwarfing his two guests by his size. And that size was proportional to his power, compared to Gennai, who was not a digimon, and Centalmon who was a mere Adult for all the responsibility he bore. UlforceV-dramon was an Ultimate, and not just any Ultimate but one who stood beyond even the four Harmonies ones. But he was not a Governor: just a protector, against those things that even the might of the Chosen shrunk before.

'The gate is lost,' the great dragon rumbled, kneeling so that the difference in majesty may be less. 'Demon will soon burn through what is left.'

'I assumed as much.' The sky flared bright red, then darkened again. He closed his eyes, recalling the words burned into his mind: 'Sin is not destroyed by mankind but locked away,' Demon, who the Chosen had only been able to drive into the Dark Ocean, 'and one day the lock breaks and an even more unbearable flame is unleashed upon the worlds.' And that was now happening: the sky was blotched with red: a barrier slowly being burnt away. 'The barriers between worlds dissolve, and a long lost order is restored.' That had foretold the return of the Courtroom and the palace it resided in, and UlforceV-dramon.

And then came the part that was still yet to come. 'The battleground for the final world is sealed away from sin, though it crumbles, within and sin will find a hope of its own within so the gates may upon in a sea drenched with bright red blood.' He opened his eyes and stared at the sky again. The most disturbing thing about that prophecy was where it ended. Gates opening on a sea of blood: a sea that seemed to spell a massacre.

'Not all prophecies are fulfilled,' Centalmon attested, dragging himself to his feet. 'But we are partway into this one already.'

'We are.' Ulforce V-dramon straightened again, marching to the doors. 'One thing is in our favour though: for too long our order has been in isolation, protecting different worlds from the shadows, keeping in ignorance. It could not be helped then; travelling between worlds was a difficult thing even for us – but now the doors have been thrown open, and we have the knowledge of six dimensions at our disposal. Even now, it is not too late.' He threw the doors open.

_It is not too late_. The situation with Vamdemon had also been changed mid-prophecy, although in that case it hadn't been in their favour. Gennai followed UlforceV-dramon into the large hall beyond the door, and Centalmon slowly followed. _We have time_.

He just hoped it would be enough: enough to find the way to destroy a Demon Lord. Or to allow the Chosen, those brave Chosen back on earth that had saved them so many times already, to do so.

**.**

The meeting of the Chosen children at Koushiro's house was underway by the time Ken arrived. He'd come as fast as he could, evolving Wormmon and flying across the river, but still the other Chosen lived far closer than he. He hadn't missed very much though; it seemed Jyou had arrived only a little before him. The senior's face was still flushed from furiously peddling, though the wheels of the bike parked in front of the Izumi apartment were still.

Wormmon could not flush per say, but he also felt the strain of exertion when he devolved and was carried in. He'd flown reasonably fast, but not too fast; if fireballs or something of the sort started falling from the sky he needed to be able to dodge, but if something happened afterwards he also needed some energy in reserve. And the panic seemed unfounded. No-one really knew what was going on, nor had they been – except for Ken – initially so concerned. And even he hadn't been initially afraid: shocked, yes, but not initially afraid. But deciding it had something to do with the digital world brought up concerns with the older generation, and some of the better informed young ones as well.

Of the second generation Chosen (as they called themselves, to distinguish between Oikawa's and the international Chosen children), Ken was the least well informed about the adventures of the original Chosen. It wasn't something that happened on purpose; even Hikari who'd shared part of their adventures didn't know it all. They all knew the general story, but often little details deemed unimportant initially were revealed afterwards when they became relevant. Like the tidbit about the international Chosen; Koushiro had mentioned in passing something Ken had had, at the time, no idea about.

And while they all knew how the digital world had appeared in the sky after the first defeat of Vamdemon in 1999, most of them hadn't known that the digital world had appeared in the sky twice before.

'Once was when we were very young,' Koushiro was explaining from his desk chair when Ken and Wormmon came in. 'Oh, hi Ken.' He went on without another pause, and Daisuke shuffled closer to Takeru and opened up a spot on the floor which Ken gratefully took. 'I was too young to remember it, and so was Takeru…and Hikari, though she remembers more clearly than most of us.'

'Because Koromon came to our house,' Hikari said, seated on Koushiro's bed. Sora was beside her, with Miyako on the end with feet dangling off and Poromon on her knees, and Mimi, who had planned on taking advantage of her winter holidays and was visiting them in Japan, was with the pillow on the other end. 'I could never forget that.'

'I'll say,' Taichi agreed from his spot on the floor, crammed beside Yamato. 'Don't know how I did.'

Koushiro's room was holding up surprisingly well: never before had all twelve of them along with six digimon been in the same room. The thought crossed more than one mind though: how cramped it would be if the older six had their digimon with them as well. But they were busy keeping an eye on the digital world.

'Koromon came to your house?' Ken repeated. He'd heard about the fight between Greymon and Parrotmon which had selected the original eight Chosen Children, but not about the Koromon. 'Agumon's Child form?'

'Not this Agumon.' Hikari laughed. 'Koromon was normal sized enough, but the Agumon that digivolved was _huge_.'

'He broke a window and jumped from the second story too,' Taichi added. 'Taking my little sister with him, I might add.' He tried to look disgruntled, but Hikari gave him an exasperated look and he gave it up. 'Lucky 'kaa-san was busy with –'

Koushiro cleared his throat. 'We're getting off topic,' he said, when the Yagami siblings looked at him. 'The police and government ruled it as a terrorist bombing because only the eight of us had been able to see the digimon. The other time was when Taichi was sent back to earth due to a time warp, and then only Taichi, Hikari and Koromon could see the digimon passing between the rift.'

'Like the time digimon started appearing in Kyoto,' Miyako cried out suddenly, accidentally jostling Poromon in her lap. 'No-one could see them until that one particular one jumped on the cameramen!'

'When the destruction of the destiny stones was warping the digital space.' Koushiro nodded. 'It is possible the appearance in the sky is a similar sort of warp. We still don't know why the digitama appeared in our world nine years ago, but the cases with Taichi and Miyako seeing digimon and the digital world when no-one else could were most certainly caused by warps.'

'I'm not sure I did see the digital world.' Miyako frowned, before looking at her partner. 'Did you?'

'You didn't take me on your trip,' Poromon replied. 'Ken brought me, remember?'

'Oh, that's right.' Miyako chewed lightly on her bottom lip.

'We didn't see any digimon on the flight over,' Ken volunteered. Wormmon nodded his agreement.

'Hmm…' Koushiro tapped something in to his computer, then pulled up another file and began entering something there. 'I wonder if…' He left his sentence there, consumed in his thoughts and analysis, until a curious and impatient Jyou called out to him. 'Huh?' He blinked, as though he'd forgotten about all the people and digimon in his bedroom. 'I was just thinking about something.'

'About what?' Taichi asked. 'Come on Koushiro, don't keep us in suspense.'

And he wasn't the only curious one.

'Nothing much.' Koushrio sighed. 'I was just thinking…well, we know the warp that sent Taichi and Agumon back to our world was caused by the clash between MetalGreymon and Etemon's entire dark network, and the warp that caused digimon to start appearing in Kyoto was caused from the destruction of a Destiny Stone – but then why didn't the destruction of subsequent destiny stones cause similar reactions? And if it is warps in digital space which cause only those who are Chosen to see the digital world or digimon, what caused the one nine years ago?'

Some of them contemplated that, while others looked confused still. 'Why is that important?' Mimi asked.

'Because if there was a warp that caused the phenomenon nine years ago,' Koushiro replied with an air of patience, the sort one adapted when explaining something they thought was beyond the listener's ability to understand, 'then it's a much higher chance that there is also a warp of some sort causing the current appearance of the sky.'

'But what could be causing the warps?' Iori asked.

'Well,' Koushiro drew out the word as though he was still putting his thoughts together, 'I believe it is the sudden and massive release of a large amount of digital power.' At the numerous blank looks he received, he elaborated. 'The warp that sent Taichi and Agumon back to our world was a result of a collision between MetalGreymon's _Giga Destroyer_ and Etemon's _Dark Network_, which resulted in the destruction of said network. The warp which sent the digimon, including BlackWarGreymon, to Kyoto was a result of Arachnemon and Mummymon destroying one of the Destiny Stones – which still doesn't explain why it was that particular one…'

There was silent for a moment while they all thought about Koushiro's theory. 'Maybe it has to do with the Destiny Stones being rewritten to act as a prison for Azulongmon as well as a stabilising force for the Digital World,' Ken offered finally. 'That's why, with each Destiny Stone BlackWarGreymon destroyed, Azulongmon's image became stronger until he appeared in person at the last one. With one power growing stronger and the other going weaker, maybe it was that particular Destiny Stone that had the greatest overall power released with its destruction.'

'Maybe.' Koushiro mulled over that. 'It would help if we could calculate the energy releases, but unless they were recorded in the digital world that's near impossible now.' He shook his head. 'What's most important now is working out what the state of the sky actually is, and what it means.' He looked at Ken again. 'Did you and Stingmon get close enough to feel any heat from the sky?'

'At the speed Stingmon flies?' Ken shook his head. 'That's hardly conclusive though.'

'Does it matter?' Daisuke asked, giving his partner an odd look as Chibimon shook himself. 'Did you get water in your ears?' Chibimon shook his head, and Daisuke shrugged, turning back to the general conversation. 'If the problem's in the digital world, won't it be obvious once we open up the gate?'

'Of course not,' Miyako began, before realising she couldn't come up with a reason as to why that wouldn't be the case. 'Fine, we'll try it.'

Koushiro offered the computer to her and she took it, while the other took her previous spot on the bed. In a couple of minutes, she had the default programme up and running. 'I'm opening the gate now,' she warned, before proceeding to do exactly that, pointing her D-3 at the screen. 'DigiGate, open!'

It opened, and none of the Chosen collected in Koushiro's bedroom could see anything unusual on the screen. But all of them had first-hand experience that the digital world wasn't always how it appears. 'Looks can be deceiving,' Tailmon yawned and stretched in her spot on the windowsill, voicing the sentiment. 'We should check it out.'

'All of us?' Sora asked, raising an eyebrow. There was quite a number of them after all.

'Only the younger ones,' Yamato decided. 'They are the only ones with digimon with them right now that can defend them.'

'And there you go, assuming the worst again.' But Taichi didn't argue; it was a sound plan.

'It's decided then,' Koushiro said. 'We'll be waiting.'

**.**

Even despite the doom that hung over them, Gennai couldn't help but be in awe of the interior of the palace – and, in particular, its council room. The sunlight seemed to pour limitlessly through the high windows, basking the twelve statues that marked the seats of the Royal Knights in its yellow glow. And each of those twelve statues was, except the colour and lack of life, so much like the original that Gennai felt if the artist (or artists perhaps) had taken the time to paint them as well, he may have, for a bit, mistaken them for the real thing.

But it was only UlforceV-dramon of the Royal Knights that was present currently, ignoring the statue that marked his own seat and instead sweeping up to the altar where a pedestal rose. It was gold digizoid: far more malleable than chrome and even bronze and silver, but by far the most valuable and sacred metal the digital world had to offer. But upon the pedestal was something even more valuable: something even more potent than the digi-cores that the Harmonious Ones held. Gennai had only heard legends tell of it, but he knew it could, at the very least, open the door between dimensions and call forth the other Royal Knights.

'A failsafe of sorts,' UlforceV-dramon explained, standing before the pedestal now. 'When the order was scattered across the different dimensions to defend the fabric of this universe, part of each of our power was sealed away within this orb: the part that allows us to transcend space and time and go to our brethren's call should our assistance be required elsewhere. But we are to use this only in an emergency, for we leave the worlds entrusted to us unprotected.' He looked gravely at the artefact a moment longer, before reaching out tenderly to pluck it from its resting place.

Centalmon gasped with awe, and it was only from living so long that Gennai was able to stop himself from following suit. But it was an awe-striking scene, when UlforceV-dramon turned to them with that pulsating energy ball in his hands.

To Gennai, it resembled a heart: a human heart, the way each part of it moved in perfect fluidity with another, and the way it shaped and reshaped itself as close to a sphere as it could manage. But, at the same time, it wasn't like a human heart because those, for all its power, was a solid mass of muscle that supported a single circuit called the human body. It was a part of not one circuit, but many circuits, and the power rippled outwards as it was released, shaking his robes, shaking Centalmon's metal body, shaking the temple beneath them… He couldn't see how far its effects rippled, but certainly they went beyond time and space, calling to the other Royal Knights.

For a moment, that was all that happened, and then there was a sharp knock on the door to which Centalmon, with a gesture from UlforceV-dramon, attended to. Gennai did not recognise the being that walked in: he was tall and grand like UlforceV-dramon, but slender and more human-like in form. He carried a sword in one hand like a knight heading in for a joust, and the eyes behind the lion mask were curled with a shadow of contempt. His gaze passed over Gennai quickly though, and it was UlforceV-dramon that bore the grunt of it as he stepped down.

And when the newcomer stopped in front of a statue, Gennai noted the kinship and realised that he too must be a Royal Knight.

'You have come, Duftmon,' UlforceV-dramon said to the newcomer. 'Your speed is welcome.'

'I see the others have not.' He cast his gaze upon the statues, two of them in particular: Omegamon and Magnamon. 'Surely those of the same world are expected to be faster than those of us who have to travel through dimensions to arrive.' He sniffed, then added: 'Perhaps they are not worthy of their titles of Royal Knights.'

UlforceV-dramon ignored him, turning to his two other guests instead. 'This is Duftmon,' he introduced. Duftmon inclined his head shortly in their direction. 'He is one of the Royal Knights who defends the barrier between other worlds.'

'And I see this one is in poor condition,' Duftmon cut in. 'But if that is the big emergency, I'm afraid there is a similar one elsewhere that occupies my attention, so I cannot help.'

UlforceV-dramon's eyes grew graver. 'Then Craniummon will not be coming?'

'He is elsewise occupied,' Duftmon replied as though he were repeating himself. 'So should I be.'

'It cannot be helped.' UlforceV-dramon stepped up to the pedestal again, this time to plunge his hand in to the depths. 'Omegamon and Magnamon are on their way and I'll explain fully once they arrive, but it is not the barrier itself which is our concern, but what has caused it.'

The air above the pedestal shimmered and the light flooding in through the windows seemed to coagulate in that single place. Slowly it morphed, and Duftmon's sword swung down to tap the ground impatiently before the image was fully formed.

Once it was, the five current inhabitants of the council hall were simply silent and watching.

**.**

The six children and their digimon partners emerged from the DigiGate with a grace they'd learnt over the many falls, stockpiles and bruises obtained from travelling as such. Some time during the world invasion on Christmas Eve they'd learnt to stay on their feet, and now their balance barely wavered as they passed through the barrier between their two worlds and emerged on the other side.

Miyako had made no particular choice with the DigiGate and it had dropped them off somewhere on File Island it seemed. Takeru was most familiar with it, but even someone completely unfamiliar with the terrain could guess as much from the large looming mountain in the distance.

But not even Takeru could work out where on File Island they'd landed.

'Not that it really matters.' Miyako shrugged, her partner having digivolved while passing through the gate as he always did and was now a Hawkmon shaking his feathered head. 'We're only here to check for the sky and any glaring problems on land, then head back to Koushiro's.'

They all turned to the sky, which was the same blue canvas it always was. Unassuming, it had failed to grab their attention like the real world sky had managed to – save for the silence that hung over them. 'I guess that's fine then..,' Miyako noted, 'but where is everyone?'

The Chosen looked at each other. 'Maybe it's a deserted area,' Hikari offered. 'Or it's a school day or something like that.'

'I don't think so.' Iori went closer to one of the trees, fingering the bark where it had been hastily scraped. 'It looks like something ran past here in a hurry.'

'You think so?' Armadillomon asked. 'They weren't just using the tree as a scratching post or something?'

'Let me see,' Tailmon said, peering at the scratch marks. 'Those sorts of marks would be more vertical. I think Iori's right.'

The boy blushed a little at the praise. The others looked carefully around. Other trees, some likewise disturbed, surrounded them. A few vines, some snapped, others whole. Flowers: some trampled but the rest whole and vibrant. And that was all. No digimon hiding up in the branches or beneath the foliage. No scorch marks on the ground, or indeed anything that suggested an attack of any sort. Nothing that answered the question of what caused the inhabiting digimon to flee so suddenly – if, indeed, that was what had happened.

'Geez.' Daisuke dragged the scuff of his sneaker in the soil. 'Rampaging digimon and burning skies are usually easy to spot.'

'Umm…Daisuke.' V-mon tugged his pants leg.

'What?'

'I think the sky's burning now.'

The heads of the Chosen snapped up – and V-mon was right. Specks of pink forced its way past the smooth blanket of blue, slowly darkening and spreading quickly. And the speed of that transformation was astounding. Within minutes, it resembled the sky of the real world, the one Ken had thrown back his curtains to and called the others who'd seen the same sort of sky.

And then it went grey and black like an approaching storm that drove all discolouration away, and the Chosen stared blankly at the sky as a hole opened up above them and dropped a load.

As it fell, they realised it wasn't something inanimate but a dragon-like being: huge, rivalling the size of Omegamon, with white and gold armour and purple wings which spread to slow and control his descent. But he came closer still, and the Chosen and their digimon dashed into the woods when it looked as though the newcomer was aiming for the clearing as his landing pad.

And indeed that was the case, as he landed gracefully and with a great gale of wind from the final beats of his wings, causing the trees they'd sheltered behind to groan and their own frail bodies to cry out from the stinging pain. Perhaps those used to flying speedily: Ken, Miyako, and their digimon, felt it the least, but feel it still they did. The digimon that had just landed was many times more powerful a flyer then they.

And it seemed he heard their discomfort because he looked towards them, then approached: slowly and with care. 'Chosen of this world,' he said, his voice deep and rumbling and clouted with latent emotions. Somehow, it was like the voice of an old wise grandparent: the sort of person whose lap children could sit upon, and whose lips they could hear deep meaningful stories from. At the same time though, the sheer power within it made the children especially think of being scolded by such a person: a person who would not shout at them but rather speak quietly with voice laden with disappointment – that voice that made a guilty child feel even guiltier as opposed to rebellious reprimand was given by a sharper voice.

And when he spoke no more, Daisuke worked his mouth into a not-quite squeaky: 'yes?' No-one else tried. They'd been awed enough to meet Gennai for the first time, and Azulongmon, and when Impaildramon had first digivolved, but none of those situations was quite like a strange but seemingly friendly power in this sort of situation.

The stranger chuckled. 'You are an interesting child,' he said to Daisuke, before addressing the group as a whole. 'Are you here for the crisis that befalls this world?'

'Crisis?' Daisuke repeated, before anyone else could answer. 'No, we're just here because the sky looks like its burning.'

The dragon-like digimon looked up to see the hole he'd come through close and the sky embrace its usual blue attire again. 'I see no burning.' He returned a questioning gaze to the Chosen.

They looked up. Indeed, the sky looked as it had when they'd arrived. 'But – ' Miyako began, confused, 'it had been like ours just a second ago.' She turned to her partner. 'I'm not seeing things, right Hawkmon?'

'Not unless we all suffer from the same delusions,' Hawkmon replied.

'I saw it too,' Hikari said. 'We all did, after V-mon pointed it out. But when we arrived the sky was just like this.'

The Chosen looked at each other, tried to tease out the puzzle that stood before them while the stranger contemplated the sky once more. 'Burning,' he repeated to himself. 'I wonder if –'

He broke off as he heard rustling some ways away, and soon the others, less sensitive, could hear it as well. The trees stood still, but the smaller shrubs shivered from distant to near, marking the path of small approaching figures – and then Agumon and Gabumon stumbled through the last of the shrubs and in to the open.

Hikari and Takeru quickly scooped up their brothers' digimon. 'Why are you here?' Takeru asked.

Gabumon shook his head. 'We just felt we had to be,' he replied.

'That's right,' Agumon agreed. 'Like something was calling us this way, asking for our help.'

V-mon frowned and shook his head again. 'Now that you mention it, I think I feel it too.'

'Really?' Daisuke looked at his partner. 'Who?'

'Beats me,' V-mon replied.

'That's a big help.'

'I'm trying,' V-mon pouted.

'I know you are buddy.' Daisuke looked around. 'All of this is too –'

A small shriek from Miyako interrupted him.

'What?'

'The sky's going back,' Miyako replied, pointing to where the first of the red was appearing again. The stranger, who until then had been watching the children and digimon with a strange expression on his face, snapped his head up to watch the sky transform beneath his gaze.

'I see,' he said finally, once it resembled the real world state once more. What he saw, he didn't say; he simply looked around, saw something of note, and struck his path. 'Follow me. I will take you to UlforceV-dramon.'

The Chosen looked blank, but the name meant something to the digimon for their faces flooded with awe. 'UlforceV-dramon is a legend amongst digimon,' Tailmon whispered, finally, when it seemed no-one else would explain things to their baffled partners. 'He is greater in status and might than even the Harmonious Ones, and it is said he only descends to the digital world in its most dire moments.'

They all processed that, looking up at the sky that suddenly looked more sinister to them. 'It's really that bad?' Takeru asked, finally.

Ken said nothing, but he was thinking about his dream again.

**.**

Taichi looked impatiently at Koushiro's desk clock. It had been a good half an hour since the others had left, and if all they'd been doing was checking on the digital world, they should have been back. Except they weren't – nor had they sent an email or a distress signal spelling danger.

He hoped that meant they had simply gotten distracted by something and weren't in some sort of trouble. And he knew he could trust the others: Daisuke didn't have the coolest head on his shoulders, but one could always count on him. Miyako was much the same. And at least one of the others would remember to alert the older generation if something had happened, he was sure. If not Hikari or Takeru who had left worrying brothers behind, then Iori or Ken probably would.

And he didn't like waiting. Not one little bit. Especially not when his younger sister and his juniors were possibly in trouble and he couldn't see or help.

'Calm down,' Yamato said from beside him, but a sidelong glance told Taichi that Yamato was equally tense.

'Speak for yourself.' It was a light jest, but Yamato cracked a smile. Surprisingly though – or perhaps not – it was Mimi who really distracted them.

'Hey,' she said suddenly, like someone would when noticing something interesting at the mall. 'The sky's back to normal.'

The other five teenagers rushed to the window, Koushiro's desk chair skidding back to hit a wall. They all stared at the sky: freshly blue – and yet, the last time they'd seen it, it had definitely been that horrid botch of red. 'Were we panicking about nothing?' Sora asked, mystified, as Koushiro ran through instant hypotheses in his head. None of them understood: they'd seen nothing happen at all – unless their teammates in the digital world had done something.

Koushiro rushed back to his computer. The DigiGate was still open, and he could see nothing unusual about the scene it fed back to him. It was only the trunks of trees, somewhat out of focus: it could only show what was in the peripheral vision of the television screen that contained the gate after all, and that was rather limited. He had toyed with the idea of expanding that, but had no viable ideas as of yet nor a real need for it. It would make surveillance easier – but it was a time of peace and such measures shouldn't have been necessary to begin with.

'The sky's turning back again!' Jyou said, sounding panicked. 'Look! I can see red dots!'

'You're being paranoid –' Yamato began, before spotting the patches himself as they expanded and became more visible. 'Oh.'

Sora shivered, though like all the others she'd dressed snugly for the winter weather and Koushiro's mother had turned the central heating on for them. And it wasn't the cold: it was the red spreading across the sky again like that cup of orange juice one couldn't quite keep from spilling all over the tablecloth and carpet below.

Mimi stood up as well. With everyone gathered at the window, she no longer had a good view sitting down. And she could see the dramatic difference once she stood: already it looked closer to the sky she'd walked under to Koushiro's place than the one she'd lived under for the rest of her house.

For the others, they'd watched the startlingly fast transformation without any idea about the force or reason driving. But they did know it was captivating: enough for the six of them to stand by the window and stare until it was the red and black that had spurred them into their meeting before – but this time, it seemed to spell something darker for them. Maybe it was the lack of the other six, still in the digital world. Maybe it was the lack of any digimon beside them: their partners were in the digital world as well, looking after things. And the younger Chosen had of course taken their partners with them.

The elder ones only had an open gate that sat unchanging but forgotten on Koushiro's computer screen, and the digivices they carried with them always. But the sky had grasped their attention tight: so tight none of them noticed the soft flashes coming from two of the digivices.

**.**

'They're here,' UlforceV-dramon said without looking up, but he had meant Omegamon and Magnamon. When Centalmon opened the door, it was instead to admit Dynasmon followed by six Chosen and eight partner digimon.

Duftmon nodded his greetings to Dynasmon before searching the children. 'Our brethren have been reduced to _this_?' he asked with contempt. 'Working with the humans is one thing, but become their slaves is –'

'Enough,' UlforceV-dramon said sharply, turning away from the pedestal and stepping down. 'Would they be our slaves instead?' Without waiting for an answer, he continued: 'It was up to us to choose our way of omniscience in this world. This is what we chose.'

Slightly mollified but not entirely convinced, Duftmon bowed his head and withdrew from the conversation. UlforceV-dramon turned to the children and their digimon next, an awkward and confused collection by the door. 'Welcome,' he said warmly to them.

'You've arrived before I called you,' said a more familiar voice with a chuckle.

'Gennai!' the children cried, somewhat relieved. Being in the presence of three so powerful-looking digimon that weren't their partners or allies they were terribly familiar with was rather intimidating despite the reputation and confidence they'd gained through their adventures as Chosen children. 'It's great to see you.'

'Better in other circumstances,' Gennai said gravely, before his lips twitched into a smile. 'But it is good to see you too.'

They crowded him, commenting on the sky in this world and in their own, and asking questions. Gennai held up a hand. 'We will explain,' he said. 'After a few more matters are cleared up.'

'Then I will take my leave,' Duftmon said. 'I have matters in my own world to attend to. If Belphemon's egg hatches, we will be in a crisis of our own.'

'If we can assist,' UlforceV-dramon said gravely, 'we will.'

Duftmon inclined his head and departed through the door Centalmon opened for him. Dynasmon stepped forward, and UlforceV-dramon greeted him thankfully. 'How are things in your world, Dynasmon?' he asked.

'Uneventful now,' Dynasmon replied. 'But the world had taken a lot of damage from Lucemon's realm.'

'It has been too long.' UlforceV-dramon shook his head. 'Come; tell me.'

They went to the pedestal together, whispering to each other in low voices, and Gennai drew the children and their digimon towards Centalmon. 'Here is close enough,' he explained, turning back to the pedestal now that a safe distance had been put between them and it. 'The power of the Royal Knights is something that even Azulongmon's core cannot match.'

They all remembered Azulongmon's core: that power surging through their bodies, unlocking those latent ultimate forms and sending Paildramon into a mega evolution…and then an even stronger stage. They remembered it making WarGreymon once more, long after the loaned power of the crests that had allowed that dig volution had faded into the structure of the digital world.

So they stayed back, because that power was not being gifted to them but merely used before them, and none of them desired to be caught in a crossfire that could see them dead or worse. But all of them were fascinated: they knew nothing about "Royal Knights", but Gennai seemed to trust those mysterious beings, whoever they were, and it sounded as though they were even more powerful than the Harmonious Ones.

Regardless, curiosity was as much a sin as it was a virtue, and not all of them could quietly wait for their answers. Iori was content to; so was his partner, Armadillamon. Tailmon too felt she had no need for haste, but it seemed Hikari had a question or two. She was looking at the statues; Magnamon in particular, looking as large as life save for the lack of colour in that grey stone form, and Omegamon who she'd only seen on computer screens looking much the same as she knew.

She pointed at it anyway. 'Is that Omegamon?'

Takeru, the only one present to have seen Omegamon in person - since Patamon had been unconscious at the time - looked thoughtfully and nodded. It did look like Omegamon to him, even if he couldn't get a good look because of where it was. While Magamon's was the second on the right side of the hall, separated from them only by one other (and one they didn't recognise in the least), Omegamon was in the same line but right at the end. Takeru followed them back: there were six on the left as well, and one in front of the pedestal and its steps, looking almost as though it was holding the platform up itself. It might have been too, Takeru noted. It wasn't as though they could see the subtleties of that design.

'Thirteen in total,' he said. 'Including Omegamon and Magnamon…and Dynasmon, Duftmon and…that other one.' He realised he didn't know the name of the blue winged digimon.

'He is UlforceV-dramon,' Gennai said, drawing the attention of even the uncurious ones. 'And those thirteen statues are representations of the thirteen Royal Knights. They are an order established before the history of the universe to maintain its complex balance and barriers between worlds, similarly to us except we maintain a different sort of balance.'

'Huh?' Daisuke blinked, then shook his head. 'Balancing balances? We could really use Koushiro right now.'

Miyako rolled her eyes, though she looked a little nervous. No-one could blame her; they all felt a little nervous, felt the pressure of those powers on the other side of the room, how quickly they'd met with Gennai, and, most importantly, the phenomenon that had brought them to this point in the first place. 'Different things need balancing,' she explained. 'Take an equation…' She shook her head. 'Nah, you wouldn't have covered that yet. Cooking then. Something simple, like tea.'

Daisuke nodded, a little lost. Cooking he knew. What Miyako was trying to say, he didn't.

'You need to boil the water. If you don't boil it enough, the tea leaves or bag won't simmer properly. And if you boil it too much, water will evaporate and you lose water.' Of course, that's why you turned the stove off as soon as the water had fully boiled. 'And then the tea bags or leaves: leave a bag or the leaves in too long, the tea gets really bitter. Put too many bags or leaves, same thing. Don't put enough or leave for long enough, then it's really watery. And of course there's the perfect amount of sugar and milk to add in too…'

'Lots of things to be exactly right.' Daisuke nodded. 'I got it; thanks.'

'I'm available for tutoring if you need me,' she volleyed back with a grin, before flushing suddenly. 'Sorry, I got carried away.'

In the few seconds of silence that followed, Ken asked his own question. 'What is it you balance? And they?'

'We balance the forces of light and darkness in every world,' Gennai explained. 'The optimal balance was set in the original world - when the universe consisted of just one world I mean - and that balance is what we try to maintain in all the current worlds.'

'Worlds like the real and digital worlds?' Miyako asked. 'And the dark ocean and who knows how many other worlds too? Tailmon explained this earlier; how everything will turn into darkness if the balance goes off kilter.'

'Darkness is a poor choice of word.' Gennai frowned a little. 'Though correct in human terms I suppose. In truth, light and darkness have nothing to do with good or evil or anything of the sort: they're simply two opposing powers that, in tandem, create a viable system. Light is what we can see, touch, feel and smell. Darkness is the invisible framework that holds it up.'

'Then the amount of darkness in each world far outweighs the amount of light,' Ken surmised, 'because an object can exist in a single plane but must still be supported by all existing planes. Like how you can make a straight line on a two-dimensional grid: that doesn't change the grid from being two-dimensional.'

'Dimension is another poor word,' Gennai noted. 'You'll find that a lot of words you are accustomed to using can mean entirely different things in different contexts. Darkness is one of the more problematic ones, being interpreted all too often as "evil".'

'In the world I come from,' Dynasmon said suddenly, his voice booming across the hall as UlforceV-dramon turned his full attention to the pedestal, 'there is a Chosen for the element of darkness. And without the miracle that boy created, our worlds would have been lost.'

'It appears all our worlds have been under strain of late,' UlforceV-dramon commented sorrowfully, straightening up. 'More bad tidings to carry to the rest of our brethren.' He made no further comment on that matter. 'We no longer know how much time is left to us to prepare for what approaches.'

'What's coming?' Daisuke asked. 'Vamdemon again? Hasn't he gotten his butt kicked enough?' He didn't know why he remembered the vampire at that moment, but he did.

Ken considered that. It would explain why that same sky had, in his dreams, felt somewhat familiar to him. At the same time though, he didn't see a strong association with Vamdemon and fire in the least. Blood yes, but not fire. And yet they'd all described the sky as "on fire" more than once. _Red could be blood, _he reflected. _Blood, fire, passion…it could be a lot of things. So why do we return to fire?_

Out loud, it was Gennai who responded to Daisuke's questions, and unlike the humans he had no need to theorise because he knew. 'Not Vamdemon,' he said. 'This is an enemy you never beat.'

Ken felt a cold shiver slide down his back and wrap itself around his waist. An enemy they hadn't defeated… That could only be –

'Demon.'


	2. That Burning World

**A/N: **Once again, a big thank you to Aiko Isari for beta-ing this fic.

Also, it'll look like I'm doing lots of world developing stuff in the one chapter, particularly due to the length of the chapter. Thirty chapters in, you might think differently of course. :D The reason for all the information now is because I'm trying to set the stage for the next arc in as few chapters as possible. If there are specific bits you want to see more of though, let me know and I'll make a collection for those scenes. This is a huge world after all; lots of potential.

Lastly, the title. Some of you have expressed concern about it being entirely in lower case. It's actually a phrase; a quoted part from a longer piece which you will come across eventually in this fic. There is also a reason I used latin – but because it is lowercase in the quote, it's also lowercase here. I also don't believe grammar rules about titles are as strict as in regular prose; it's not a hard and fast rule that everything has to be capitalised, and I honestly prefer it this way. Part personal preference to, so I hope that's okay with everyone.

Enjoy the second instalment of septimo distentioate!

* * *

**septimo distentione**

**.**

There was still time, they said: Gennai and UlforceV-dramon. How much time though, they couldn't say. The concept of time itself was changing as worlds met: the two Royal Knights who'd come from other worlds that had left, and the crumbling barrier around the Dark Ocean that also threatened to separate – or crush together – the connected worlds. But that was, for the time being, irrelevant. Because they could not calculate the time they had to prepare, they could afford to waste none of it. And if they could stop it, then all the possible consequences would never occur.

Hasty plans were made: plans for research, plans for blanket repairs and plans for defence. The Chosen departed momentarily: inform their families of a possibly prolonged period of absence and fetch the other children – and email the ones that weren't so easy to call.

The messages were brief, but no Chosen had missed the burning sky and, once they knew it meant the evil sealed behind it was slowly being released and such an evil was more a menace than BelialVamdemon that had taken their combined might to defeat, they arrived.

It took days. Gennai did not want to risk the stability of the barrier by opening too many DigiGates. The one in Koushiro's apartment was kept open even after the second generation Chosen had passed back: their permanent connection to the human world after the sealing of the original Highten View Terrace gate. For the Chosen in other parts of the world, they did what they'd done during the world crisis. The Chosen gathered up in those same locations, and this time the gates were opened from the Digital World to call them all in.

From there, they split into groups. Some, like Koushiro and Wallace, returned back to the Izumi apartment to make use of Koushiro's computer there. Of all the Chosen, Koushiro was the one who'd accumulated the most data and the most theories about the Digital World, and his computer and its numerous external hard drives were the result of that accumulation.

He had another computer as well: his old one, which he'd loaded the Digital Barrier on once before he'd been able to convince his parents he needed an upgrade. In fact, it was that incidence that did convince them, and when he did get his new computer, they went all out and got him the best. Over a year later, it was still better than most household desktops even in the more technologically advanced areas in Japan like Akihabara. At the time he'd felt guilty since good computers didn't come cheap, but his parents had known how important it was to him and its superior capacities had come in handy many times since.

Those good at research but not so much with data crunching were combing the digital world for information. Centalmon had even taken a few to the temple with him: while he'd combed their walls many a time beforehand, not even he could remember all its contents and it was possible there was something there they'd overlooked. UlforceV-dramon came and went from parts unknown, but before doing so he'd offered the use of the palace's library to the Chosen as well. 'I too have combed through its contents,' he said, 'but there might be something your human eyes can find better.'

Their digimon partners took no offence to that. They knew their human partners saw the world in a slightly different way. They helped their partners how they could. Those accompanying the readers read as well. The possibility that they would find something others had not was always there

Some of the other Chosen, good with computers but not necessarily the data crunching part of it, worked with Gennai in monitoring and maintaining the barrier dividers. It was a difficult task that thwarted them in every turn, but they pressed on because that fire spilling in to their worlds was something they wanted to prevent at all costs. There were a few less proficient ones as well: watching and learning as quickly as they dared – because it was a taxing task, and there wasn't enough of them initially to work in shifts. But the desire to save their world pushed them on, and the number who could manage the process grew. It wasn't difficult in that the programing skills needed were complicated; it was the timing that made it so taxing.

And the rest of them spread themselves over the two worlds, watching for Demon or other troubles to flood through the patchy barrier.

**.**

**Chapter 2  
Those Burning Worlds**

**.**

Craniummon looked at the sky. It had been a day since Duftmon had departed in response to UlforceV-dramon's call, and no news had come since then.

In a way, that was good because it also meant that Belphemon's egg still slumbered uneasily. But not knowing what had caused it to stir so early from its slumber made him uncomfortable. Worse, the barrier between the Digital World and the human one were fragile still; they'd had barely a year to heal from the damage caused by Kurata. Belphemon's rage would spill into the human world and destroy them both should he awake.

The problem was, there was no way to stop his awakening they knew of. They had searched tirelessly since the dawn of their world, but it had been a problem beyond even Yggdrasil and all they could do was watch it rampage and, once he'd destroyed most of the Digital World and had exhausted himself, attack with their full strength and reduce him back to a digi-tama. That process reduced the greatest of them to digi-tama as well, but they were not bound like Belphemon in chains and buried under a temple. They grew fast, so they could defend the Digital World.

And yet not fast enough; in the eyes of Belphemon they were still children, newly returned to their Ultimate state. While the help of the Chosen had meant they hadn't crumbled into infancy as soon as the task of quelling Belphemon's rage was done – in fact, all they'd done was combat the blasts that crept into the Digital World – but the ensuring fight against the collapse of their worlds had taken nearly as much from them. He had been the worst off of them, a mere Child. It had taken a lot of hard work – but necessary, since only Duftmon had remained with him – work to regain his Ultimate status quickly – helped along by Daimon Masaru and his Agumon.

And now it turned out it was a good thing he did. Initially, it was just because the situation of their world was more vulnerable with Yggdrasil asleep beneath the digital earth and only one Chosen available to them should any problems arise. If it was absolutely necessary, they could force the barrier open from their end, but the strain on both worlds would be great. It wasn't as simple a matter as opening an interdimensional portal – and even those portals were specifically for the Royal Knights. The Chosen would not be able to use them unless they were carried, and with only two Royal Knights currently in this Digital World and taking into account the time fluxes that occurred each time unconnected travels were made, the process would be entirely too slow in an emergency setting. If it came to that, they would have to force the gate open and risk the collapse of that barrier once more.

He hoped it wouldn't come to that. But if Belphemon did awaken, the strength they currently possessed might not be enough. And if he awoke while Duftmon was answering UlforceV-dramon's call, they would be in even greater strife. He didn't yet have the power to blast through a wall between worlds himself. Though he wouldn't be surprised if Daimon Masaru managed it somehow, if it came to that. He had a knack of making the impossible possible, but even that hadn't been enough to permanently destroy Belphemon. The egg had been found in the cleaning up of the Digital World and resealed under the temple that guarded it. But it hadn't been enough to return Belphemon to his natural slumber once more. Whether it was a side-effect of Kurata's control or something else, they couldn't know. They just knew that Belphemon was stirring too quickly, and they had advanced no further in finding a way to contain him.

Crainummon sighed and turned away from the sky. It was bright and blue, woefully ignorant to the panic slowly spreading cross the digital plane. The inhabitants of the digital world could feel it spreading, rippling through the air and the ground. Prosperity, already rigid because of the still sad state of their world, arrested. It was a difficult world to watch when he still felt young, and powerless. And even Daimon Masaru was not there now, busy elsewhere, for him to spar against and grow stronger.

The sky rumbled, drawing Craniummon's attention again and he saw the portal he'd waited for opening and Duftmon's sleek form falling through. He fell like an arrow, towards the tree that had once marked the dwellings of Yggdrasil. Craniummon took to the skies and followed with the speed that had been redisposed upon him since his evolution. And there, they met again: the preordained meeting place for the Royal Knights in their world.

Once, it had been a palace. Now it was only a single tree, unassuming save for the power that slept within it. And they could see their power: to them it was a marker unlike any other, one that beckoned them. A place they could meet without a meeting having been determined beforehand – and the desire for news was strong enough to desire that.

They arrived together: Craniummon and Duftmon, leaving a small cloud of dust at the foot of the tree that slowly settled. 'What news?' Duftmon said immediately, sword unsheathed. The worry in his actions was evident despite the way he held himself: professional…even regal.

'None,' Craniummon replied. 'Belphemon's chains crumble at the same rate as they had when you departed yesterday.'

'A day.' There was no relief evident in Duftmon's tone, however the relief was there. 'It was good time.'

Craniummon nodded. 'And what of UlforceV-dramon?' he asked. 'What did he want?'

'They too have had problems with a Demon Lord,' Duftmon explained. 'The Lord of Wrath. Evidentially, the Chosen of that world sealed him in an ocean made of the chains of regret and pain, but that prison is crumbling and setting the skies aflame.'

'They as well?' That was troubling news. However the time in dimensions flowed at their own pace, by opening the path between dimensions there existed a common time between them. And, so far as they now knew, two Demon lords were awakening, in two different dimensions but in the same time. And possibly more; Duftmon confessed he had talked very little to Dynasmon before departing, so he didn't know the status of that world.

'But LordKnightmon was not with him,' Duftmon said. 'Perhaps he, like you, stayed behind to protect their own world.'

'Perhaps.' He hoped it was overcaution as opposed to need.

'Or perhaps he too has decided to enslave himself to a human.' Under the mask, Duftmon's face twisted into a sneer, his disapproval clear. 'Like Omegamon and Magnamon have done.'

'Hmm…' Unlike Duftmon, Craniummon was not opposed to the idea. The Daimon family: father, son and daughter too, had seen to that.

'More importantly…' Duftmon's tone went grave and Craniummon looked at him. It was rare for Duftmon's tone to change at all. '_That_ prophecy is in motion now.'

**.**

UlforceV-dramon landed gently, but still he startled the temporary occupants of the palace. It was night in the Digital World, but not all the children or their partners were asleep. It came from them being from different parts of the world: for some of them, morning had just begun.

Their time was in sync, for whatever reason, with that of the Tokyo area of Japan. So the two boys he knew best, who he'd met on that first day when the sky had gone red, were both asleep. Others were hard at work though. For lighting they used the DemiMeramon and Candlemon that had come to help. Indeed, the digimon were helping all they could even if most of them didn't know why. The sight of the sky reminded them all too richly of other disasters, and those digimon were friends of the Chosen or their digimon.

The DemiMeramon and Candlemon were friends of the Meramon who in turn was affiliated with the Yokomon at Yokomon Village, Piyomon's kin. Piyomon had not told them the whole story, nor was she here now: she and Sora were keeping an eye on that area of File Island along with some of the Chosen from Russia – or she had been. The Chosen tended to group together at night time – their own night times. Aside from Iori and Yamato who was almost always there and researching, Takeru and Daisuke were there as well. Koushiro and Jyou were still at Koushiro's apartment, but they'd switch places with some of the American Chosen soon. That was the process they'd settled into, tirelessly searching through the Digital World and the data it contained for a way to stop the inevitable.

Because they'd already tried to defeat this enemy, and they had failed. They had allowed him to kill: kill human beings, something that not even Vamdemon had managed. A small number perhaps, compared to the amount of digimon that had lost their lives to other, evil digimon – but the human world was a separate place and should never have been included in the fatalities.

And it had only been a week. Not all the Chosen had dropped everything and stayed, though they'd all come. After the first day those still with commitments: school mostly, but there was the occasional one working part time as well, returned there and came back in the afternoons and evenings. Those on holidays stayed almost fulltime – but most of them slept in the Digital World. They remembered staring at the sky when the darkness spread, wishing a way would open up to them. It had, in the end, but the waiting had been an agony. If they could avoid it, they would. If they could forget school and work and seemingly trivial things in the face of the fate of the world, they would – but they also knew it could me months, or years, before the barrier completely collapsed. After all, they were working to keep that barrier there.

UlforceV-dramon wondered if the answer was truly there. With so many Chosen and Digimon combing every square inch of the Digital World and its database, it seemed inconceivable that some shred of hope still hadn't emerged.

_No_, he reflected, _that's not quite true._ They'd found a lot of interesting things. Things about new evolutions that had not yet been seen – and even further evolutions that had been done, but only by a select few. For example, most of the digimon partnered with Chosen Children were capable of independent Ultimate evolution, and yet to date only two had obtained that form. And then there were the Jogress forms: those were not limited to what had already been done, and even Imperialdramon and Silphymon were capable of further digivolving. But knowing those things and being able to do them were two different things. Unless a miracle allowed the Chosen to transgress their current limits, it would be impossible for their Chosen to achieve a new state of power in a matter of days. If they truly did have years, then perhaps they could, but the children and digimon working on the barrier claimed months was the best they had, and even that was becoming less likely by the day.

UlforceV-dramon was weary as well. He'd tried going to those other worlds: a risky business when neither Magnamon nor Omegamon were in their Ultimate states – but he was confident their Chosen could unlock that power again if it came to that. And the Harmionious Ones had donated what digicores they could without risking their own life forces: those digimon that had achieved Perfect evolution in the past could now do so again, but that was the limit to that power. Ultimate was still beyond them – beyond those very few who had managed it, because it would take an entire digi-core and, at this stage, leave too many other places defenceless. And if the power ran out before the barrier was completely gone, it would be like a wound with its stiches freshly ripped off.

And while finding a way to defeat one enemy only to lose the world to another was a pointless feat, no other enemy they'd ever seem matched up to the immortal power of a demon lord. He had found some things, in the worlds where the other demon lords had once existed. He'd met briefly with some others of the order: one from each dimension and no more, because trouble was starting to brew everywhere...because they would tell the others and more important was to find an answer somewhere to bring back to his own world.

But like them, those other worlds and their defenders had failed to find a way to destroy the demon lords. Instead they'd been sealed: either whole and suppressed in power or returned to their digitama state. But they were sealed: not erased. Their rebirth would one day occur, and they all searched. But until their hopeful future was stripped from them they didn't search as desperately as they did now. For all dooms they had foreseen before had also given a glimpse of a saving face: a way to turn the tides.

But they refused to believe that the lack of mention of hope meant that hope did not exist. So they searched, because as living beings their priority over all else was survival: of themselves, and of the world in which they lived.

If it wasn't for the bursts of fire fleeing through gaps in the barrier, UlforceV-dramon was sure they would have become complacent by this point. Just like they had in the past. Because time went on, and so did a great number of other things. While they focused their attention in one place, trouble brewed elsewhere. That was all a part of the inner complexities of the world, and that was what they faced.

And it was the fire that was the main source of continuous chaos. Nobody felt safe when a fireball could graze their village to the ground in an instant. And the digimon could not stop that entirely: they blasted as many out of the sky or away from residential areas as they could, but despite the number of Chosen there were more places in the Digital World that were occupied. And not everyone was willing to abandon their homes for a more protected place in the first days –

But eventually, the number of abandoned villages grew as digimon collected in the big cities that everyone fought tooth and nail to protect. Fear spread as well, but at the same time the amount of casualties decreased. And it was a relief for the digital world's inhabitants to be in the same place. It meant leaving the uninhabited landscapes to their fate – and surely, if things continued as they were for the months they hoped, those who lost their homes would shout out their anger, but for now…

He looked up at the sound of humming in the next room: the sound of someone passing through the DigiGate in the palace. It wasn't like the gates the Chosen frequently used: those television screens that created a temporary tunnel between the two words and could, theoretically, be moved to open a gate from and to anywhere in both worlds. This gate was a more permanent establishment and the open and exit points weren't so malleable. It was for guests to the palace, when it had been a palace on the digital earth, and its halls were filled with inhabitants of many worlds. That was before the enemies that had threatened that unified existence, before they'd been forced to split off the universe into segregated worlds to support the entire structure. But that was before the Royal Knights as well: it was as much a lesson to him as it was to all the digimon that came either.

He didn't think there was any of that old world alive now: the order Gennai was from was as old as that of the Royal Knights, but no older. Regardless, the palace and the gate had been there before the inception of the Royal Knights, and could be used to maintain a permanent connection between two worlds. They'd used it to connect to the DigiGate open on Koushiro's computer, keeping it from closing and providing easy access between the two places without risking other DigiGates opening up elsewhere in tandem. Because like the human world computers, the digital framework had a certain capacity for connections: a proper gate like the one in their palace – and the one that had been in Vamdemon's castle – used up all the available space, while the more temporary ones like the televisions used up less. It was another defence mechanism for them, further restricting the immediate area available to Demon should he suddenly emerge.

And he probably would, because for all the different methods of digivolution they'd found – and even the existence of digimon species they'd never even met – they'd found no sure fire way of destroying a demon lord. And he doubted they ever would: if such a force existed, they would have destroyed the demon lords eons ago – unless it was a method so dark and terrible that it could even be used as a last resort. He couldn't imagine such a thing: what could be worse than the destruction of the entire fabric of existence?

Koushiro and Jyou emerged from the room that held the gate and joined the general crowd, from which several children, not all who he recognised by name, left. That meant the ones on guard duty would be leaving soon to trade places. And already, they were whispering to each other, trading notes and packing up. UlforceV-dramon met a few of their eyes, but they just shook their heads in disappointment. He went over anyway: looked at the information they'd gathered – this time on the digimentals. It was potentially useful: they'd never tried swapping digimentals around but the book showed diagrams of those capable of armour digivolving having several different states. While it didn't seem all the digimon were capable of using every digimental, there was more variation then they'd exploited. There were also a few other digimon capable of armour digivolution: few they had never considered. When searching for digimon with the ability to armour digivolve, they'd found only five.

But even then, armour digivolution would be no match against the might of an Ultimate digimon. Except for the Golden Digimental – but for the Golden Digimental to be able to support the maximum amount of digivolutions they could gain from it…

Thoughtfully, he checked on the other Chosen, who'd found nothing else of potential use, and then took flight. _The Golden Digimental_, he thought to himself. Not only would it give the Chosen an edge obtainable in a potentially short period of time, but it would give Magnamon a route to return as well. A route that didn't involve them waiting until the world was a hair's breath away from destruction – and while UlforceV-dramon did not usually mind the arrangement, at a time like this one it was straining for him to be the only one currently in Ultimate form.

Unlike Duftmon, he had nothing against partnership with the humans: he'd had a partner himself once, in fact. But that was a long time ago, and to explain it to anyone in this world would only lead to confusion and unnecessary blame. That was a dangerous chapter of the past already closed: another time when they'd had to open the passages between dimensions when an abomination of time wandered through them, wreaking havoc on the continuity of their worlds. (Yes for V-Tamer reference)

That had almost been their failure as the ultimate protectors: they who monitored the state of the worlds from afar until such a time came as that demanded their intervention. Those cases were rare, because before them were many layers of defence, including many generations of Chosen. And they were all admirable Chosen, rising up to defeat a great many challenges.

But they'd been worried, initially, when they knew those enemies they would one day face were powerful enough to defeat the Gods of their digital world. And so Magnamon and Omegamon had decided to cease their vigil from afar and join the rank of Chosen digimon. UlforceV-dramon had chosen to stay behind, because there needed to be at least one of them in that higher position should they needed outside assistance. And, during that time, he'd continued research and monitoring of the digital world – until that time when the laws that governed their worlds had been torn apart, and haste had demanded that he too abandon their position of vigil and join forces with a Chosen in order to save him as well. And he had saved him…but that Chosen remembered nothing of that time and he returned to his vigil.

And now it had come to this. The ancient palace with all the knowledge of the digital world had descended on to the digital earth. Dangerous knowledge, which could cause the end of the world many times over in the wrong hands, and with no defence save him, and who he admitted. But it seemed inconceivable there existed a danger greater than the one trying to get into their world – and even if there was, never had there been a Chosen to betray the trust and power placed in them, and never had the digital world been so united as it was now, in the face of that imminent threat.

He doubted it would last forever: that arrangement. The children would tire, spend more time in their own world and less time searching. So would the digimon: they'd go back to their regular duties, try and rebuild their homes and continue their lives the moment balls of fire stopped falling from the sky – or they'd give up and make establishments elsewhere: expand the cities and leave the outer villages to burn.

But did they have time for things to come to that? Time was what worried him the most, in the end. Time was what they were fighting against, and the perfect time for them, between under-preparedness and mental exhaustion, may slip past without them even noticing it.

Just like it was so easy to fly past one's destination, he noted to himself as he found he'd passed Gennai's underwater abode. He braked in the air and turned amidst the sulphur fumes and soft rain of fire which had become a permanent presence close to the clouds – and the barrier behind them. None of the Chosen dared to fly that close; a few had, originally, but sulphur was poisonous to humans in a way it wasn't to digimon. And it was a substance of human world: human world fire, to be precise. It had been chalked down to a result of the collapsing barriers, but still they searched fiercely for a hint of an explanation in Demon's past.

But knowledge about the past of the Demon Lords, before the Royal Knights and the vicious cycles of destruction and rebirth, was not to be found. It was as if they didn't have a past beyond the sin they represented…and the desire to destroy the world.

**.**

Gennai might have returned to the form of a young man over a year ago, but he was still old: as old as the Royal Knights, and without the luxury of hibernation and rebirth. It had its advantages – and if his order were capable of rebirth, he would not be its sole representative – or have been for so long, since the Dark Masters dispatched all else that had remained. That in itself was no advantage, but what he had gained through that was a long memory and eons worth of wisdom.

His memory wasn't what you could write essays or novels from; it was patch and frail, like a blanket that had past its prime long ago – and so had he. What one with a short life found important was inconsequential to him: the fragrance of flowers as they changed through the seasons and the years, the warmth of the sun as it drew ever closer with each rotation of the earth – but he wasn't human, or from the human world. Like the digimon though, he inherited that sense of perception that allowed digital data to appear almost...organic.

But worlds struggled to describe things. The digital world was no less alive simply because the structure differed from the human world. But when one considered the human world to be the roots of all others, it was unavoidable: calling that world the "original" one. And when that original life was from organic matter, that which was made from data was inevitably considered artificial. Humans even had a term for that: "artificial intelligence."

Perhaps the children did not understand, being young and innocent despite what had been exposed to them. Adult humans would not fight for them the extent to which children do. Adult humans would not be able to sacrifice their self-preservation for a world that could be revived again – because he survived even when the entire world was engulfed in the flame of destruction, because the source of that world lived on.

That was also what made it possible to repair the barrier, because its programme existed in the real world, ingrained into its technology, and in the digital world that became tangible and manipulable. And that was what they did: first, he himself fulfilling the duty he'd carried since technology had first been born – and in digital world that equated millions, if not billions, of years. But when it was being degraded, removed even from the human reservoir, it became a task he could not manage himself and he turned to the Chosen for help; turned to them because that was what they always did, from the time their order had realised why they were beyond the digital world, and why the digital world itself was beyond absolute destruction.

Balance was their assigned task, but beyond that they researched the entire base structure of the universe: what the different worlds were made of, how they connected, where their sleeping memories lay in the case of destruction so they could be repaired and regenerated – and protected. And it was so important to protect the human word because the source of all the worlds he knew, after the Royal Knights had sealed the barriers and created the concepts of universes dividing groups of worlds, was that one world. And not just that, but it was dependent on a specific time, a specific progression of events that created the virtual world that took imagination and dreams to a higher level, augmented always by the advancing technology appearing so deceptively independent – because it didn't matter that firewalls were strengthened to guard government secrets or databases made more robust to support the medical data of millions of humans or circuits were connected in further optimal ways to create even more mobility… Why technology advanced didn't matter; so long as it did it meant the digital world too could advance – and if destroyed, be reborn.

But one hundred and eighty-one years in human times equated to many lifetimes of the digital world: beyond what he could know and, even less, remember. Because counting years was another thing that quickly became meaningless. Time was only valuable when destruction loomed at the end of it – and for the longest time it had seemed nothing would ever destroy them.

They had been wrong, otherwise Piemon would not have succeeded in reducing that order of his to a single representative: himself. They had been a threat severely underestimated: let through by the Royal Knights thinking them just another enemy to further the advancement of the world, and ignored by the Harmonious Ones for the same reason. But when they made their move the Harmonious Ones fell and the Royal Knights panicked – panicked and made the fateful decision to join the ranks of the Chosen themselves, to correct that mistake.

They had been reincarnated once since then, so he doubted they remembered the details of that. On top of that, Omegamon and Magnamon were yet to return to their final forms: those forms of the Royal Knights. And now there was another threat: a threat no-one could underestimate, nor ignore. Perhaps the human children will, given time: become like adults – but for someone like him, time only meant an opportunity to find an answer…if it existed.

He was perhaps the most and the least hopeful of them: least because he knew those records had been read as many times as the world had been reborn and they had yielded no answer. He had not read them himself: such things were not his forte, and to cross into that domain was a dangerous thing for the inhabitants of the digital world. Because he did not belong entirely to the digital world; he could not go beyond the council hall because they feared he would sacrifice the digital world to save its roots.

And perhaps he would, though that option had never been given to him before. Because he would not die with the world, and it would be reborn. Only when the human world was threatened too was it a dire time – and it was a dire time, because while only Chosen could see the flames behind the barrier they were there, and once it crumbled entirely those humans with no contact with the digital world would see it as well. And time was even less to Demon because memories were something entirely different for him: not associated with a multitude of emotions but with one in particular: the one that made their being. All else was a slave subjugated to time, but not those things which invoked a strong emotional response: those things they forever remembered – even when faces and names faded from their mind or was wiped away in baths of data before rebirth. That feeling remained: that feeling to constantly strike against the digital world until it crumbled and was destroyed. That feeling that led to fierce battles against the Royal Knights and the Chosen Children – battles that were long and hard and nothing like the massacres that decimated the rest of the digital race – and maybe they could massacre those children too, if they tried: if those emotions that made them who they were didn't cloud their minds so.

But then there really would be no hope – or no risk.

Gennai looked at the sky. It was holding, for now; not half an hour past it had looked like the barrier would collapse under the stream of commands they were feeding in. It had started routine but had long since drifted away from that. More important now was to re_create_ as opposed to reconstruct: make that barrier anew like a virus mutating its DNA to escape the immune system – except that virus was Demon's unchanging and unyielding fire trying to swallow the world and the immune system was a barrier light years behind in terms of defence.

In the human world, he had no doubt the sky looked the same – to any, if any Chosen was still on earth and awake – but to them it was an entirely new sight. The world had burned before: it had burned many times before, but only in the memories of those who'd reached a high enough state of evolution before that to preserve those memories. And the Royal Knights had, but even they could not recall the entirely of their past lives: such as reincarnation was. Nor could the Harmonious Ones below them – and they were perhaps the only ones who could recall at all. To everyone else the destruction of the world was something that only occurred once, even if the concept of death and reincarnation was a familiar one.

It wasn't so much the digital world was under threat that concerned him so greatly. He wouldn't say it didn't concern him at all: there were things one could see many times over but still not simply accept, and senseless destruction such as this was one of those things. And he knew why the sins were immortal like they were: the same reason the digital world could live on past the cycles of destruction it underwent, and that was an unavoidable thing. It was also not a thing digimon could understand; even he could not, though he had spent very long trying to tease apart the two concepts in the hopes of maintaining one and discarding the other.

They had tried that, initially, with the digital world as well: before it had proved humans were the only things that could save it, give it longevity – because even if the digital world had its repair mechanism to fall back upon, without the Chosen their world would be perpetually in a primitive state: without value. That was the sort of life they were fated to, without the humans…or their world. Digimon had tried countless times to move beyond that, but it had proved to be impossible. Perhaps if the human world was destroyed they'd have their ultimate answer: a digital world that could not be brought back from its destruction…or one that has finally moved beyond the ties to humankind. Who knew? It was too great a risk because they knew too well how problems in the human world seeped in to theirs, unfiltered, despite the barriers that were made to protect. At least they mostly worked the other way around. Only if the barrier had weakened would things cross through, and only then it was to those select people: the ones who were Chosen. The barrier had to be removed entirely for things to pass from the digital world into the human one – and that was exactly what Demon's flame was doing.

Demon had never cared about the human world before, until he had been led there like a mouse following a piece of cheese. That wasn't entirely new, but this time the battle had taken place there, between the Chosen and him. And from there he had been sealed away within the Dark Ocean: the Chosen failing to do anything more. And that jail cell of his had proven too weak in the end. He'd broken out too fast.

A shadow approached from the sky as it darkened again, like a volcano making itself ready to erupt. It carried analogies too painfully close to the human world: the entire digital world did, for those roots of it seemed forever engraved. Originality did not exist; all things could eventually be traced to some aspect of the human world. That was most of his life's work after all. There was no-one more qualified to argue that point.

If there existed a passageway to the future, it would be through the human world, through the humans unlocking a miracle: the sort of miracle that had turned many potential destructions around, and bestowed upon the digital earth a longevity that eventually ran dry. The Royal Knights believed differently – but ultimately it did not matter whether the answer lay in the humans or in the digital world, so long as it was found. Together with the Chosen of the world, every stone in both worlds were being unturned – and yet time which seemed in times of peace so insignificant a thing was rapidly becoming an enemy greater than the one that stood behind it.

But when UlforceV-dramon landed this time, it was with excitement, and possibility, and Gennai wondered if long life had made him somewhat blind as well.

**.**

'The Golden Digimental?' Gennai repeated, considering the idea. It certainly was an interesting one, and one that would expend a lot of energy hence why it was considered a last resort. But it was feasible, though restrictive. The time and extent were things that would need to be carefully calculated, but in theory it was possible to, at the very least, restore Magnamon's form. 'And how many digimon are compatible with it?'

'It is possible there are more than what's illustrated in the literature,' UlforceV-dramon replied. 'But mentioned are V-mon, Armadillamon, Hawkmon, Patamon, Tailmon, Wormmon, Terriermon and ClearAgumon.'

'Hmm…' Gennai frowned over his memories. One disadvantage with a situation like his was attempting to recall specifics. 'Most of those are unique digimon.'

'Unique to the Japanese Chosen,' UlforceV-dramon confirmed. 'Except Terriermon and ClearAgumon; Terriermon belongs to a single Chosen as well, but to one from America, but there are several ClearAgumon. Six, I believe.'

'Thirteen,' Gennai thought to himself. 'Thirteen digimon supported by the full power of the Golden Digimental would certainly be an asset.' And possibly more, because they would also be supported by the hearts of their Chosen: in itself a powerful force. The Royal Knights themselves were thirteen, and all of them against the demon lords had proven to be an equal match. After the split they had divided themselves based on the power of their enemy, and wrath had proven the strongest of them, and the most brutal. Even the three of them could not reduce him to a digi-tama, even with the Chosen Children…but in the end it did not matter. Time was inconsequential to some but infallible to none: the day that prisons would not be enough arriving was unavoidable.

'Coupled with the Royal Knights, we may have a chance,' UlforceV-dramon responded. 'The involvement of the human world presents an extra degree of difficulty, as does the time – no.' He closed his eyes, shaking his head. 'For us, the time cannot be helped. If only he could have been reduced to a digi-tama again, his power would not have had the chance to grow so potently beyond control.'

'The Chosen were not the first to fail,' Gennai signed.

'No,' UlforceV-dramon agreed sorrowfully. 'That was our failure, first and foremost.' He handed Gennai the notes he carried, notes passed on by those Chosen from the castle, and the maintainer took them. There was little about the structure of the Digimental itself, but luckily that knowledge was known to Gennai. He'd used it to construct the Golden Digimental from the Crest of Kindness just over a year before. But the crest had contained the necessary level of power, having been born that potent force that was responsible for the selection of that boy as a Chosen…but to find thirteen such powers now, when almost every viable candidate was already a Chosen, would be far more difficult.

He voiced his concern, and UlforceV-dramon thought on it as well. 'The V-tags do not exist in this reality,' he lamented. 'They belong to the land, not its people, and are structurally not integral to that land. And yet they had possessed a strong soul power: from all the digimon who had lived on that land and tried to protect it…and the humans who had fought for it as well.'

'If they could be recovered…' Gennai began, before shaking his head. 'Perhaps they could, through the other world, but even then it would be only five of the necessary thirteen. The crests have long since been returned to the framework of the digital world, and the other digimentals are too dilute: they draw on the crest power themselves.' He was silent a moment. Behind his eyes, the wheels turned, but they were invisible to the outside world, carrying their own thoughts he did not wish to share.

But it was not the time for such things: if ideas existed, they must be brought up and discussed, because opportunity was a difficult thing to come by and, when it came, it was something they had to grasp with both hands. 'You have thought of something else,' UlforceV-dramon said.

Gennai hesitated. There were certain things that never became easier after all. The destruction of the digital world was one. Chosen dying for both their worlds was another – and even if that was mercifully a rare case it was still one that always managed to strike close to his heart. And Oikawa was recent to all of them: to mortals for which a year and a bit was a substantial portion of their life…and for ones like him to which it was only a breath from a much longer span – but the most recent of them all. Nothing of consequence had happened between then and the current time after all. That man could have passed just the prior day and it would be the same to him. And what he had sacrificed…

But the truth of the matter was that his method did produce results – if they were willing to pay the price for it. Though it wasn't theirs to give: a fact that made it both easier and harder to bear. Because they had no right to offer the human children as sacrifice, regardless of whether they were willing or not – and would they be? Or was that something that even children were not naïve enough for: to give up their lives for anything?

Ironically, adults were better at that: at sacrifice. But the power of their dreams gave far weaker results. They'd made that decision long ago: to choose _children_ because they had infinite dreams, and infinite potential. The willingness of sacrifice gave such things a limit, and they had accepted that.

And, maybe, he had grown to love every human he had met, and gotten to know.

'What is it?' UlforceV-dramon asked, staring into the crease lines on Gennai's face as though the answer the guardian didn't want to say aloud was written there.

'The power…' he said, anyway, 'comes ultimately from those children. Raw power that is channelled through the crests, through the digimentals. With time, that can be used to make the crests anew without any sacrifice, but we would many hundreds of years of digital world time for that.'

They both looked towards the sky, its patches slowly growing, shrinking and shifting around. But those changes were slow: all they could see was its stirring presence behind the sky, and the occasional burst that was released.

And, of late, the sulphur-like fumes creating a barrier anew – but a barrier that was a hindrance and no help, because all it did was obscure their greatest source of knowledge: their sight. And that smog had spread to the human world first – or had appeared there first. It was difficult to say without wasting time on useless calculations that could be better utilised in giving them a few more minutes to plan.

Of course, that only held true if they found a plan that could be feasibly executed in that time.

And their window of time, as stated so clearly now by the sky that all humans could see the smog even if they were blind to the fire that had caused it, had narrowed far beyond that and was narrowing even further. They did not have hundreds of years. They did not even have years. Not even _one._ Months, or weeks – that was the time frame they were working with, and it was a time frame narrowing by the day. All it did was increase fear and reduce the risk of burning out before the crunch – though the risk would always be there and rightly so. Humans lived for far less time than digimon, and here was a situation where too many dreams were a bad thing. It was too easy for their minds to wander, too hard to devote their entire heart and soul – but they, the digimon and even his order, had worked tirelessly for many lifetimes more and never defeated this enemy.

But then, no group of Chosen had gone through as much as this one. No generation had had so many, and in their core those few more powerful than any other Chosen's digimon partner. No Royal Knight had ever partnered with a Chosen before in their world. And never had the sky burned as it was burning now.

'Do we have that long?' UlforceV-dramon asked…though he knew they didn't. They both knew they didn't.

'No.' Gennai closed his eyes to the sky that would eventually fall along with the anvil that would destroy their world, and shook his head. 'They are running out of ways to repair and protect the barriers. And even the best amongst them in terms of programming are running out of ideas. It is those ideas keeping the sky afloat still, UlforceV-dramon.' He opened them again. Blue was impossible to see, between the layer of greyish smoke and the red behind it. 'I don't believe I have ever waited so long for the world to die and be reborn.'

'It is our fault,' UlforceV-dramon said, 'because we did not see Demon escape and were caught by surprise. And I failed to subdue him here and let him enter the human world. The children were never supposed to fight him alone. They couldn't seal him away long enough for the cycle to repeat itself. I am still a far cry from my full power.' He half smiled. 'But Agumon, Gabumon and V-mon have never been stronger. If they have a strong support…'

'But we won't know how Demon's power had been affected by his imprisonment until –' Gennai broke off, eyes fixated at the sky where a small portal opened and the figure within it dropped. Great dragon like wings, a white body…he recognised the form of Dynasmon flying towards the palace, then back to them when only the Chosen were found there.

'I have good news!' he said, breathless and with excitement heavily laden in his tone. 'Lucemon's presence has vanished entirely from our world!' (Well then.)

**.**

Mimi winced as she watched another fireball flash against the sky. Lilimon was up there, shooting with her with her _Flow' Canon_ along with Angewomon and her _Holy Arrow_. Hikari was beside her, D-3 tightly in her hands and eyes glued to the sky. She was shouting up to the digimon whenever she saw a fireball that needed to be intercepted. Mimi had been doing that before, and once Hikari's voice started to crack again, she'd take over.

Earlier that week they'd flown with their digimon. That was before the sulphur fumes began to spread, before the fires started getting too close. Hikari's lungs were a little weak already, because of all the infections she'd had as a child. That smoke sent her into a coughing fit before the digimon even noticed the smell. And Lilimon was small, smaller than Angewomon and Mimi was bigger than Hikari which meant Mimi was extra load for her partner and that reduced her manoeuvrability. Now they stayed on the ground where they could still be of some help. She'd doubted it initially, when Hikari had suggested they call to their partners. How could someone's voice travel that far and still be understood? Mimi had wondered. But it didn't seem to be about the physical distance at all, but their hearts, and their partners reactions improved when they could help spot fireballs for them.

Hikari gave a cry of surprise suddenly and Mimi's eyes flew across the sky like passing a cosmetic stand in a rush and still trying to pick out an interesting shade of nail polish. She spotted the source of surprise quickly: a portal unlike anything she'd seen before. But Hikari seemed to recognise it, and the silhouette that fell from there towards the palace that had come atop of Centalmon's temple – the temple Mimi remembered as being the place she'd, with Koushiro, learnt the secrets about the digivice from. It disappeared from their view for a moment, then appeared again and took off, away from File Island and towards Server before landing again.

'I think…' Hikari sounded uncertain as she returned her gaze to the sky – and cried out again, this time because another fireball was emerging. Angewomon quickly fired a _Holy Shot_ which hit its mark, and Lilimon spotted the next one and aimed a _Flow' Canon_ at it.

'I think,' Hikari continued, 'that was Dynasmon. That Royal Knight that had come from another world when we met with UlforceV-dramon.'

Mimi's brow furrowed. 'Did something happen?' she wondered aloud. 'Or maybe he found somethi – oh, there's another one.'

Lilimon heard her and shot at it. The attack struck, but this time didn't destroy the fireball completely and Angewomon was quickly forced to follow up with a _Holy Shot_ before it hit the grass in front of their humans.

'They're getting stronger,' Hikari said worriedly. 'Last week we had to worry about their attacks being _too_ powerful.'

'Or our digimon are just getting tired,' Mimi said reasonably. 'They haven't had much rest lately.'

And it was a fair point. By the time Michael brought along the shift change: the American Chosen Daisuke had met during the world invasion, Lilimon and Angewomon looked more than ready to land and take a breather. And they did land, a little haphazardly in the field to which Angewomon looked particularly disgruntled. Lilimon simply looked sheepish; of all the Chosen's digimon – at least the Japanese Chosen – Hikari's perhaps put the most emphasis on her pride.

But Lilimon had her childish tendencies and would only laugh at such displays. And that laughter was all the time they took to recover, because their partners were tired as well, and as soon as they could return to the palace they could get some warm food and much needed sleep.

So they flew, despite their tiredness, each carrying their Chosen. Lilimon was ordinarily faster, but she carried more weight so there was no need for her to consciously slow down for Angewomon. But Angewomon was still pretty fast: faster than Angemon and AlturKabuterimon, and, because of her size, perhaps Garudamon as well. Garudamon might rule the skies, but her larger size made her less agile.

It was a smooth trip except the fireballs they shot down along the way – that now took two shots instead of one – and they flew that route every day since the barrier began to burn, so with confidence now as well. The others had waited for them: this time, they were the last back. Even the ones who had been busy in Koushiro's apartment had arrived before them. But they were stationed the farthest as well, so that had happened on most days.

Digitamamon had food ready. Like the Candlemon, he'd volunteered to help and had set up temporary lodgings in the palace with his Bakumon and Vegimon helpers. In his case, the help was feeding all the Chosen that passed through – which was everyone at some point or other, which left him cooking almost round the clock. But it was fine, he said, because as long as he wasn't using any of his attacks or training himself in any way, he wasn't expending much energy at all. He needed far less sleep than the humans whose bodies worked differently, or the digimon who were busy learning or shooting fireballs in the sky. And what little sleep he did need was easily covered by his helpers, who he'd reared into perfection. And each dish he prepared was delicious, and everyone couldn't help but be grateful to him.

Tired they may be, but with Digitamamon and his crew there, hunger was never a problem. And its aroma was inviting enough that even if the Chosen and their digimon were dead on their feet on arrival, they could manage a decent meal before collapsing on the floor of those carpeted rooms serving as their temporary lodgings. And that was exactly what they all did: all the Chosen who came from Japan and their digimon around that big low table the cooks kept overflowing with food.

But it wasn't until Mimi could collapse on the thick carpet and kick off her boots could she let out a sigh of relief. And she could only imagine how tired Palmon must be, if this was her after doing nothing but looking for fireballs and yelling when they came. Lilimon and Angewomon had been the ones doing the work after all, and now that they'd returned to their Child forms, Palmon was lying with her petals drooping beside her and Tailmon was flat on her back on the windowsill, lacking the energy to curl into her usual ball. Hikari had chosen the bit of carpet under the sill, and was for the time being using the wall to prop herself up. She looked like she wanted to sleep too, but more important than that was finding out what had happened that day.

It turned out Miyako and Ken had the most welcome piece of news. But before that was the problem Mimi and Hikari had encountered: the problem they found those others that had been on the field were noticing as well.

'It is probably the weakening barrier,' Koushiro said thoughtfully, looking towards the pair that worked on it.

'It probably is,' Miyako said,' running a hand through the tangles in her hair. 'We're honestly running out of ideas, and while we keep on putting new patches, it seems like Demon's fire manages a way to burn it down and we lose more by the day.'

They all knew what that meant. Unless those guys working on the barrier found a way to keep it save from Demon permanently, it would come down and rain fire upon both worlds.

'There is some good news though,' Ken said. 'Some of the other Chosen found some texts on armour evolution – or, more specifically – the Golden Digimental.'

Their eyes – human and digimon – collectively widened at that. They remembered how potent it had been, how it had allowed Daisuke's V-mon to obtain the power to take down Chimeramon who none of the rest of them had been able to scratch. Magnamon who they'd later learnt was one of the Royal Knights and equivalent to an Ultimate digimon in strength…or moreso because he was partnered to a Chosen Child. If other digimon could achieve that fleeting state of power, their strength would increase dramatically.

'Gennai hopes that he can remake the Digimental and multiply it,' Miyako continued, taking over from Ken, 'one for each Chosen whose digimon is compatible with it. But it will take time, so UlforceV-dramon, Gennai and those Chosen who originally found the records are all searching for a way to speed up the process.'

'How much energy are we talking about?' Koushiro asked, already thinking.

'Thirteen compatible digimon,' Ken replied, 'so thirteen Digimentals with each requiring the energy of an entire crest to generate.' He pressed on at the few gasps that echoed in the room they'd claimed for themselves. 'Actually generating them won't take that long. The problem is the energy. Re-extracting and recharging the crests will taken longer than we have in the best case scenario…and Gennai says the other Digimentals are tertiary stores, having drawn from the crest power themselves.'

'But the crests are – ' Taichi cut himself off as something occurred to him, and the younger Chosen and all the digimon looked curiously at him. The rest of the original Chosen understood though: understood that the power of the crests came primarily from the heart, and therein was a more potent source of power. The second generation lacked the experience to realise that despite their intelligence, and for the digimon it was a somewhat difficult concept to grasp. The human heart was, even after all the years since their first interaction with the human world, a foreign concept to them. 'Did Gennai say anything else?' he asked instead, to turn the curious gazes away.

They all looked at Miyako and Ken, who both shook their heads. 'I can't imagine it being an easy task though,' Ken said. 'There must be a reason there were only nine crests despite all the Chosen in the world.'

That was all that could be said about the topic, except one final question that quite suddenly occurred to Daisuke. 'What digimon _can _use the Golden Digimental?'

Miyako looked questioningly at Ken, who closed his eyes and listed them off. 'V-mon, Armadillamon, Hawkmon, Patamon, Tailmon, Wormmon, Terriermon and ClearAgumon.'

Taichi sighed heavily. 'So none of us older Chosen,' he sighed, before forcing a grin. 'But all you younglings are fine.'

'None of Oikawa's children though,' Takeru pointed out. 'Unless that one guy's Plotmon winds up evolving into a Tailmon. The other seven must be international Chosen.'

'Wallace has a Terriermon,' Koushiro noted mildly. The conversation had moved away from theories and towards small talk, in a sense, which gave him the opportunity to drift off. 'One of my pen pals from Colorado,' he elaborated at the questioning looks he received, before closing his eyes. Some of the others continued talking, but he noticed voices dropping off until it was just Miyako and Ken trying to come up with a new idea for the barrier, and then even their voices fuzzed away.

He was awoken later in the night by Miyako's panicked voice. 'Wake up!' she cried, almost tripping over Tentomon as Sora and Iori sat up, blinking blearily. Hawkmon flapped loudly too, rousing Tailmon and Piyomon whom he'd shared the windowsill with, and Hikari. The others were a little slower to stir, except Ken who wasn't there at all. 'The barrier's gone!'


	3. Broken Barriers

**A/N: **Another chapter polished by the lovely Aiko Isari and posted! Enjoy!

* * *

**septimo distentione**

**.**

Demon forced more fire on to the barrier. It angered him, made him impatient despite the inconsequential time had after his long and unfulfilled life. Because reinforcing that barrier was pointless. Trying to save that barrier was pointless. He would reduce it to even less than ash soon enough.

But waiting was waiting even when time was an irrelevance. He wanted to watch that world – _those_ worlds – burn. He wanted enough fire so that it finally quenched the unquenchable wrath that burned in the cavity of his chest. He wanted it all gone: all those miserable little creatures that kept on locking him away as though he'd eventually burn out and die like a candle on its last breath.

But if he _was_ a candle, he was a candle with an eternal flame that waxed and waned on the whims on the world. But he was overflowing with power now. His imprisonment had sapped none of his strength and that inconsequential thing called time had let it grow – slowly, yes, but it _had_ grown. The barrier was dissolving under his fingertips –

And when it finally exploded under the strain, he laughed and let the fire spread where it wanted to.

**.**

**Chapter 3  
Broken Barriers**

**.**

The barrier crumbled away from their fingertips suddenly and unexpectedly. Wallace had been entering in a new patch when it happened. Sparks flew from the keyboard and the screen went black, and for a moment he wondered just how bad that last patch had been. It couldn't have been enough to crash the computer, surely, even if it _was_ an untested patch, modified from one of Koushiro's custom-made ones. But Koushiro's computer had been heavily fortified by the boy, and Wallace doubted that even Nanomon could easily crash his computer.

And Wallace wasn't exactly a slouch when it came to computers. He'd been one of the international Chosen to thumb through the mechanics of the D-3. He'd been taking advanced programming classes for years, and he was on first name terms with a guy who'd successfully hacked into the Pentagon. It was a shame his computer couldn't keep up with him, since his parents knew all about that friend and weren't eager to give him the means to follow suit. Not that he _was_ interested in more than the intellectual challenge that came with trying to hack into the Pentagon.

But trying to hack into the Pentagon on an outdated computer was nothing like trying to replenish a burning barrier, and Wallace felt his brain had been worked harder than it ever had before. And all the Chosen were showing similar, or worse, signs of wear. Few of them had such strong backgrounds in programming as Koushiro or himself – not even Koushiro's prodigy or the boy genius Ken. But the pair worked surprisingly well together, considering how incompatible they'd looked when he'd first met, and between them they were far more efficient than just Wallace or Koushiro on their own.

And really, they needed both expertise and efficiency. And he really wished at least Koushiro was here now, because he'd know what had happened to his own computer.

But then there were screams and crashes and the smell of something burning outside, and that became unnecessary. Wallace abandoned Koushiro's computer and bolted to the window along with the other Chosen working what had been dubbed "the night shift." It was a bit of a squeeze, but no-one needed a particularly large view of the window to see what had happened outside.

And if they'd thought the sky was burning before, that was nothing compared the angry red it was now. And the ground, the buildings, all of them were suffering, melting away under the red streaks of rain that pelted down. The people scattered for cover, were still scattering: parents sweeping up little kids who were tripping on their own feet in haste, birds bursting in flocks from the park just a few blocks away... But the umbrella that stood over the lemonade stand in the street below had already been reduced to a few scraps still held up by its frame, and Wallace could see several cars parked in the street or in designated parking spaces that were turning slowly brown under the rain.

But the cause of the crash he couldn't see, except the smoke rising up from behind a building.

He backed away from the window. Terriermon and Lopmon hugged a leg apiece and the other Chosen there mumbled to each other in shock. _What had happened?_ was the main question in their minds, the main fear. _Did the barrier break?_

Koushiro's computer screen flickered back to life, and the Chosen hurried to it, and to the other laptops they'd connected to increase the CPU and efficiency – but those seemed out of commission still, because they tried a few keys and the power, then cursed and crowded around the central computer. Wallace checked his patch. It hadn't even made it to the server. He checked the barrier. The computer was no longer capable of reading it. He checked the gate: the one UlforceV-dramon had linked up to that still nameless palace that functioned as that world's headquarters for the Royal Knights. That was still working, and it didn't take long for him to send a distress signal and for someone on the other end to appear.

It was Ken, so Wallace didn't have to worry about explaining where he was or what he'd been doing. 'The barrier's gone,' was all he said, all he needed to say before a flurry of activity began on the other side. Ken turned and yelled something; he received some response and people and digimon started rushing about.

'Tell me more,' Ken said urgently.

Wallace did, taking a deep breath first and letting Terriermon and Lopmon crawl into his lap where they'd be more comfortable. He explained about that new patch he'd been planning on trying, in a little more detail than he strictly had to, but Ken understood the principles and computers was something Wallace could be, largely, comfortable with. He explained how he'd tried to apply to patch, only for the computer to become unresponsive and, according to the other Chosen there with him, the connected laptops to follow suit. He explained how they'd become aware of the chaos growing outside, and how they pulled back the curtains to see the sky completely transformed. The words tumbled out of his lips, over each other and over the noises from the screams. New screams, new crashes – and then the sound of something very near them creaking, before the ground and windows shook.

Ken's face went fuzzy and out of focus for a moment, and a few of the Chosen's digimon went to check: FlareLizarmon and Meramon, both of whose bodies were made by fire and the least likely to suffer under the rain. Their Chosen: Sam from America and Mina from India, stayed as close to the window as they dared once the window stilled. That red rain looked too hot, too painful, and now dust and smoke were obscuring the street as well.

Wallace wretched his gaze away. _Your job's here_, he said sternly to himself, though the panicked voice overran that. _What's going to happen to us?_

Lopmon whimpered and clung even tighter to him. Terriermon tossed his head nervously. Wallace typed ferociously; if the gate was lost, their world would be as good as gone with what forces were currently in it. Seven Chosen and their digimon, and not one of them could reach the Perfect level.

Ken's face became clearer again. 'Here's much the same,' he said. Apparently, in those few seconds they'd worked out the state of the Digital World as well. 'One of the Chosen has a Taomon, so we're hoping that barrier's strong enough in case Gennai has anything for us.' There was a pause and some muffled sounds, and then Ken added: 'we can't think of anything with the rain, and there's no sign of Demon yet. There's no sense in anyone getting hurt before we have to fight.'

Wallace opened his mouth to reply, then stopped when FlareLizarmon and Meramon rushed in. Meramon immediately started talking in…whatever language they talked in India, Wallace guessed. He could make neither head nor tail of it, though the tone itself spoke levels of urgency. But his partner understood, and said something in the same language once he had finished before catching herself and switching to slightly fragmented English.

The gist of it was that an apartment building a few blocks down had somehow collapsed and its debris was now smouldering like a fire without enough energy to start.

But with fire literally raining upon them, they wouldn't have to worry about that for very much longer. And just a few blocks away as well. The Chosen looked at each other. The same feelings, the same fear, stirred in each of them. The building was just a few blocks away. And there'd have been people in there, taking shelter. People who were now crushed under the rubble. People who could have been them if it had been their building that had collapsed.

**.**

Ken barely turned when he heard the others come. He was too busy listening to Wallace and the background conversation. The other seemed to have forgotten him a moment, caught up in the new piece of news – and it was no wonder. Fire raining upon the human world was at least bearable in the short term. They hadn't known any other effects, invisible as the burning sky had been to the rest of the human race.

But if people were fleeing for shelter it could no longer be worlds apart to them. And if a building had collapsed and was smoking so quickly, he could only imagine those fireballs the spread out force of Chosen had been intercepting in the digital world.

And there were only those Chosen at Koushiro's in the human world.

'We have to do something!' Daisuke was beside him and clenching tight fists. 'Where the hell is that Demon?'

It was so easy to think that all they had to do was defeat him…because that _was _all they had to do. Doing it was the difficult part, because they'd given their best the last time and failed to make a scratch. Were they any stronger now? Hopefully they were. BelialVamdemon had been after that. The target practise with the fireballs had been after that. Even for the Chosen busy with research: their digimon had been busy protecting the temple, the palace, and Gennai's lake house.

'But what about the rest of the world?' Mimi asked, her parents at the forefront of her mind. Her voice quavered in worry, and slight fear. 'We can't protect two entire worlds.'

Unfortunately, what she said was true. There were a lot of Chosen now, but still not that many. Not enough to chase down every loose fire ball that fell from the sky _and _focus an attack against Demon. If every child on the planet was a Chosen they might have been able to manage it, but while it had seemed like that during the battle against BelialVamdemon, it wasn't the case. There were still many children their age without partners, without perhaps any knowledge of the digital world. They'd found it surprising, considering how much of a drama the digimon had managed to make in the year 2002, but it was the truth. The world, at large, was still ignorant about the digital world.

Ken left the others to discuss. Wallace was talking to him again, and he listened. 'Ken,' the other boy said, 'a building a few blocks from here collapsed. We're going to see if we can help.'

'Right,' Ken said, because there wasn't anything else he _could_ say. Like they were uncertain about what to do and could only go with what they felt was right in the end, Wallace and all the other Chosen were the same. 'Okay; let us know what happens.'

'Will do.' Wallace made a motion as though tipping his hat, and Ken caught a flash of the digimon twins scurrying off their partner's lab before it was only Koushiro's empty bedroom staring back at him.

Ken kept an eye on it still, because he didn't want to miss anything should some news unexpectedly come. But he focused back in on the conversation around him: a conversation that, by the sounds of it, hadn't moved much at all since he'd stopped listening to it.

'And the other gates have been closed off,' Koushiro was saying. 'The only place we could protect without Imperialdramon's superior transport capabilities is Japan. And Imperialdramon couldn't possibly carry enough people – ' Koushiro suddenly stopped, before adding hastily: 'I'm sorry, Mimi, I don't mean –'

Ken turned around and saw the tears brimming in Mimi's eyes. She shook her head. 'It's the truth,' she said quietly, clasping her hands together. 'I'll pray they'll be okay until we beat Demon.'

But it made the rest of them think of their own families. Those international Chosen that now had no easy way to rush home. The Japanese ones that did but couldn't just leave the rest of the world to its fate. Except for Ken, whose way was closed unless he wanted to sacrifice that home and possibly the rest of the human world in his stead. Ken who carried a mark, a way Demon could find him at the ends of the earth if anger and desire led him that far.

'But we can't just sit here!' Daisuke yelled, standing up.

'We hear you, Daisuke,' Yamato said, sounding tired, 'there's no need to yell.'

Daisuke lowered his voice but did not sit. 'We can't just sit here,' he repeated. 'Every moment we waste trying to figure out what to do is another moment more humans and digimon could be dying.'

'But what do we do?' Miyako asked. 'The human world or the digital world? Whatever we choose, we'll sacrifice one of them?'

Iori, who had been quiet until then, spoke up. 'Is it bad we can't say without any hesitation we should go to our families?' he asked, shaking a little. 'I want to, really I do, but Armadillamon is my family too.'

'I hear you,' the digimon said, 'but don't worry about us. So long as you guys are okay, that's what matters most to us. We can rebuilt the digital world once Demon's kicked the bucket.'

'What he said,' V-mon agreed, and there was a mumbled assent that spread like ripples through the Chosen that had slowly gathered around the gate.

But their Chosen had become too attached to the digital world to abandon it that easily. Especially since Demon had always fought the Chosen in the digital world. But the truth was that the battleground didn't matter: what mattered was what they were fighting for. They'd all already left their families to try and save the digital world. Leaving it now to burn was inconceivable…

Except the human world was starting to burn as well. That force protecting it had disappeared.

But…

'I can't go back,' Ken said quietly, cutting through the mumbles of digimon attempting to convince their humans like a butter knife. 'Demon was looking for me last time. I'll lead him right to my family.'

His voice was flat, a little detached. It _hurt_, not having any way to protect his family, but it was also a relief because there was no question where he should be. 'I'll stay here. Find a good place to draw him out. Hopefully he'll remember the dark seed…or me.'

His friends looked at him. Their expressions were hard to read, except Daisuke's which matched an expression Ken had seen on it long ago. That expression he'd worn when arguing against Ken's desire to enter his base alone, when arguing against that fatalistic wish for self-sacrifice. Ken couldn't help but smile at that. He'd come a long way since that broken post-Kaiser child.

That smile caught Daisuke off guard, stole whatever argument the other had meant to make.

'But we need to beat him there,' Ken continued, smile fading. 'We need to stop him before he can do any more damage. We need to draw every bit of his attention, so he leaves the rest of both worlds alone. And I can't – ' His voice shook. 'I need everybody's help for this.'

'I got it.' Daisuke sounded…almost relieved, Ken thought. 'I can't speak for the others, but I'm in.'

'So am I,' Mimi, who had fallen silent for the last but of their conversation, spoke up. 'It's as Daisuke said before. If we beat Demon here, we can save everyone. We can save them better than running home to them and fighting fireballs and waiting for him to show up.'

'We're all in,' Taichi said, and the others nodded. 'Everyone who has a digimon that can get to Ultimate. Everyone else should handle damage control. We can't worry about the fire rain now.'

'We'll help in Japan,' said Noriko, speaking for the remaining Japanese Chosen.

And since Imperialdramon couldn't go to the human world, there was nothing that could be done elsewhere. But they were comforted by the plan of action, the possibility of drawing Demon out and striking him down before the fatalities spread.

If they hadn't already spread, but they couldn't think of that right then.

**.**

UlforceV-dramon felt the barrier break a few crucial moments before it did, and his superior speed allowed him to make it to Gennai's doorstep before the rain of fire and debris began. The fire was dilute but still more potent than most digimon and all humans could bear: within the microseconds it took for him to pass beyond the sight of the lakefront and into the interior of Gennai's house he saw the trees singe and flake away into ash.

Humans were as fragile as the replicas of organic life they had in the digital world. Against Demon's fire though, even weak and unfocused and with the residue of demon lord's gaze looking elsewhere, even the toughest digital skin would feel the burn.

And if a full force of that fire was aimed at any one digimon in particular, they would be beyond even ash. He remembered that: remembered the careless way in which Demon threw his weapon of flames about, uncaring of whom he hit so long as everything burned. But Demon had not been at full strength then. He'd been searching for more power, thirsting for more power – unlike now where the fire spilt everywhere but no movement from he himself was immediately seen.

UlforceV-dramon worried about that. What cause did Demon have not to immediately plunge into their world…or the human one? But he entered soon enough, and UlforceV-dramon heard the scream of the land as it cried out, burning amidst the burns, amidst the flames.

And then there were cries of Chosen and partnered digimon alike swept up in a new wave of flames. Raw flames, fresh from those wrathful, thirsty hands. Cries that hadn't even the time to gain a voice, be audible to the world. Just the voices of souls as they were swallowed up in destruction.

And so close to them were other Chosen and digimon moving, searching, waiting – and thinking they had a fighting chance. A chance they may well have, if they could survive the first true wave of flames.

**.**

Demon burst into the digital world, burning, and searching. The scent of sulphur was like oxygen to him and he drank it in greedily as he scanned the digital plane. It was such a miserable scene: empty and devoid of life save a few scurrying humans and digimon trying to fight the fire he'd pulled into the barrier, the fire that was now bursting forth.

Some of them had fallen without help, but they were all Chosen and Chosen's digimon. That much was obvious to him, because they were so perfectly paired. Chosen like the ones who sealed him, who tried to destroy him and failed time and time again. Chosen like the ones that kept on getting in his way.

But he was stronger now, stronger than those pitiful still Perfect level digimon running about the digital plane, thinking they could stand up to an Ultimate like him. And he wanted them gone, eyesores as they were, ruining his beautiful image of the burning plane. He stretched out a hand, looked at those red claws he hadn't been able to enjoy for so long, then spread the palm and summons fire to it. With a clenched fist that fire, far stronger than anything he could pull off in his captivity – and if he could have produced such fire, the barrier would have been _nothing _to him.

That didn't matter, because it was nothing to him now, and as he let go and watched the little ants below him be swallowed by his attack – a true strike rather than those weaker residues from his slow demolition of the barrier – and reduced to ask like the landscape.

He paused there and considered: considered whether he should remove the dirt and skeleton trees and buildings, at the moment holding on by mere thread of its existence, or first lay waste to the life that still wondered. If they were in his view he would obliterate them in a heartbeat, but the quiet unchanging landscape already halfway to destruction was something that did not evoke the same sense of urgency.

He sent an experiment burst of fire and watched it reduce an ash grey tree – already struck once by flame and stripped of its colour of life. It wasn't quite the same feeling as watching those humans and digimon burn. There weren't any masses running in fear. They were already hiding. Not that it made any difference in the end. He would sniff them out. He would sniff out all shreds of life in the end. Only that would satisfy him.

But, for the moment, impatience clung to him like a petulant child. He wanted more lives to burn. He to hear the screams of those fleeing in terror before the second wave sucked them up. The inhabitants of the digital world had tucked themselves away under the illusion of safety. He threw a few more balls of fire, and watched little village huts come down without a cry. No-one sheltered in them. Only the abandoned village vanished too quickly to catch aflame.

Fire rained around him and fumes clogged his nostrils and he wanted – no, _needed_, more. Digimon, Chosen…the human world where there wasn't the infinite space of the digital world, where he'd gone before searching for some power that could have made him even stronger…

He raised both arms and let a rush of flame shoot up: a beam like a laser except far thicker and burning the sky it touched as though it had punched a hole through the division between worlds. But there wasn't much of a division; the fire passed through the sky and into the world on the other side.

And, from his side, he could hear the screams of humans amidst the creaking and shattering of buildings.

If he were just a bit more powerful, he could reduce those huge buildings with a single strike as well from that distance, but the sound of those screams were music to his ears and he could be content from hitting volleys from afar.

Until he sensed something that pulled a string somewhere into a not. An irritation – and a desire. Power: power he wanted. For himself. To destroy. Either one.

He went towards that beckoning power, then recognised it for what it was. A seed that could grow within him into unparalleled power if he had it. A seed he'd tried to obtain: a seed of once many seeds, but he'd been too tightly bound back then, too weak. And he'd escaped prematurely, driven by desire for that power. He'd been locked away again – but locked away without diminishing his power, so he'd grown, grown stronger.

Still, he wanted that power, because it was stronger still. Or could be. Those foolish Chosen knew nothing about that seed or its power. That foolish Vamdemon knew nothing about it as well. Not its origins. Not the potential it held. Not even what it meant.

He didn't need to remember it to know. Memories were inconsequential, but knowledge was something he had in plenitude. He'd seen almost every digimon that had ever existed: all save the few weak species that were born and eradicated entirely during a single cycle of captivity. They were not things that stood at the forefront of his mind. That space was for instinct and instinct alone. But the knowledge existed there, if he dug around for it. And anything that made him turn towards was something that made him dig for that knowledge.

_Milleniummon. The Dark Seed. Ichijouji Ken. The Chosen._

The Chosen that had locked him away were there.

**.**

They saw a Taomon approaching too late. Demon, intentionally or not, got the digimon first and within seconds he and the human partner he'd carried were swallowed by the heat.

'Demon's fire is spreading too far.' But Gennai did not look up from his work. He did not need to. He had seen the world swallowed with fire before and it was an image burnt into his mind. He was not like UlforceV-dramon; that knowledge had not been erased and rewritten with each incarnation so those memories were a raw wound each time they repeated themselves.

'Already, there is almost no-one else who can survive Demon's fire.' UlforceV-dramon stared at the sky: that blotched angry red now so much like an overflowing volcano from the human world. Soon the molten lava would pour into their world – but how had Demon become so powerful, so fast? 'What wretched secret does that demon possess?'

"An even more unbearable flame is unleashed upon the world." Gennai repeated those words of old, the words that had too quickly come to life and devoured their world. A week or thereabouts: that's all the time they'd had to battle a power they hadn't been able to comprehend. Gennai and UlforceV-dramon; they'd been the ones that had panicked, that had known more than the rest. But not even they had imagined that Demon's first true strike would wipe out almost ninety percent of the Chosen in a single blast and who knew how many other humans in the human world.

And they both doubted that was even intentional. There was so much empty land that had been blasted. Not even the graveyard of the digital world was spared, or the great deserts or deep oceans of the human world where no humans lived. It looked almost random: those beams of fire that shot from his hands like laser beams: five or six at a time striking, disappearing, leaving smoke and death and destruction…

And it had been what? Minutes?

'Golden armour.' UlforceV-dramon watched the next beam fly overhead. He had only been a few seconds in the initial rain before passing through the barrier, but his wings bore burnt marks as though a hot poker had been forced on a human palm for some extended period of time. 'If it can resist that fire…' He shook his head. It was wistful thinking after all; it was impossible to create the golden armour in such circumstances.

'Hundreds of Chosen and their digimon.' Gennai's voice was carefully controlled, though not desensitised. He had seen the digital world destroyed many times. He had seen massacres of digimon far more often than he cared to count. But the obliteration of so many children… It took all his age and experience and instinct of survival to hold on to that one cruel yet saving thought. 'Demon struck too fast to take away their hope.'

UlforceV-dramon understood quickly; too quickly. 'You can't mean – ' Meeting Gennai's eyes, he lowered his head. 'Of course, that is the only choice we have. And humans cannot be resurrected like digimon can. Those lives…were all lost in vain.'

'Will be lost in vain,' Gennai countered. 'Their life force, for a few precious seconds, exists. Enough to create the Golden digimentals. Enough to give the few that remain the weapon they need before they too are destroyed.'

UlforceV-dramon turned away from the window. 'I wish I was in another world,' he said, 'and another Royal Knight was here. Not me, not Magnamon, and not Omegamon. We have had human partners. We care about their lives too dearly to be able to condone this.' He closed his eyes. 'Except –'

'I too am fond of those Children,' Gennai said, 'and I have met each and every one of them.'

'Indeed you have.' UlforceV-dramon opened his eyes. 'The sacrifice has already been made. And consequences mean nothing if there is no future.'

Behind him, fire approached: not above like the one before, but aimed towards. Neither of them turned, or looked, but both could sense it clearly as if they had.

'I would like to say the world will recover.' Gennai worked quickly. With energy in reach, the rest of the process was easy. Moulds. Shapes. Concentrations of energy into one tangible source. Multiple digimentals… No, not multiple digimentals. There was no time for that. One digimental overflowing with power like the digicores, enough to catch several digimon in its light once release. A gold egg, still dripping molten like true gold newly melted together into a solid form, but those last few streaks quickly snaked back into the smooth surface until it swirled, radiant, in that globe.

'Take it to them, UlforceV-dramon,' Gennai said to the Royal Knight as the beam of flame approached his home. 'And there is no time to think.'

UlforceV-dramon took flight immediately, shooting into the sky faster than the fire approached. And after he was gone, and that reluctance, that need for action, it was as though time had slowed down. Gennai thought he could make it to his garden before it struck his barrier. Or maybe even his little fish lake: a lake within a much larger lake, made from saltwater. A little fact that had baffled Jyou so much when those Chosen had first visited his humble abode.

And now he had the time. Not that there was no-one to think of the horrors, the consequences, for him. It was like using the bodies of the dead as stepping stones: bodies spread over a lake of poison so that one person still alive could safely cross. Horrible in thought, horrible in words, even if the painfully logical truth was that they were already dead, already beyond saving. Seconds, microseconds even. Before even the fastest of them could see where those first few strikes would land they had landed.

And UlforceV-dramon had come to _him_ because he hoped there was some hope he could carry on to those Chosen that remained.

Magnamon's Chosen. The two Chosen that shared Omegamon. Gennai hoped they had survived…and he'd seen Imperialdramon, he thought. They may well have. Imperialdramon would not have escaped unscathed, but he would have survived. That initial onslaught at least. If the shockwave of the one that had landed by the castle hadn't been enough to shatter his barrier he was sure – but what did surety matter? He'd been sure an answer existed somewhere, that no prophecy before had spelt so completely their doom so none ever would. But when in minutes a lifetime of irrevocable damage had been done it was difficult to still see that hope.

Only because he had touched that potent energy: those life forces of the ones who had vanished from existence before their hope could die, so that power of theirs could be collected and transformed into the golden digimental and live on…a destiny that had remained open through the times for the Chosen, if such potent energy was ever needed so quickly. A secret that had been passed only through the order: his order…and, when they'd finally been told, the Royal Knights.

But it wouldn't be long before everything was lost. The world was weak, whether it was because of Vamdemon's influence or Demon had grown incomprehensively in his short imprisonment and it melted like butter in his hands. But the enemies the Chosen had faced through their years were a far cry from this one. No-one was ever ready to face the Demon Lords, but somehow they were even more unprepared. The frantic search for knowledge, for a quick-fix that would give them substantial power, was just another reflection of that weakness, that desperation.

Hopefully it had amounted to something, with that digimental.

**.**

FlareLizarmon and Meramon were the first back to the scene and they started digging at the rubble. The humans were slowest, trying to shield their faces and avoid the rain on their skin – but that was impossible, and it seemed the rain was dying away.

Wallace looked up and Terriermon wriggled his way out of his partner's jacket to look as well. The sky was still a haze of red, but not so strong. Rather, it was like a translucent shower screen painted over with red and grey and black. But behind it he could make out a shape: wings, clawed hands reaching towards them –

His breath caught in his throat. _Is that..?_

The column of fire that emerged stole that thought away. It wasn't aimed anywhere near them; if it were, it would have incinerated them before they could take their next breath. Still, the smoke and fumes and debris that rose were enough to cause their eyes to sting and their throats to scream in protest. More than one of them doubled over, trying to clear their throats – except the two fire digimon who could live in such climate without maladjustment and could continue their work.

But trying to find the people who had been in the building was not easy, and trying to help them out was impossible. One child they managed to uncover started wailing hysterically at the sight of the digimon, and it wasn't until Sam had the bright idea of pretending they were rescuers suited up in middle school play props that she stopped her inconsolable crying. But the slabs of concrete were heavy and none of their digimon were made for menial labour. Speed was largely their strength, except Meramon but he could not touch the cement without heating up the metal lodged in it. He could move the ones they were sure were not covering humans underneath, but just nudging the metal pole had caused the already tender girl to cry out again, this time in pain.

And they were all too unfamiliar with such a setting to know if she would be better or worse with Meramon freeing her. If her spine was damaged, it would be better to wait for professional help – but if the world was destroyed none of that would matter at all.

Still, standing in the debris and watching the pillars spread from that focal point in the sky and burn unknown hoes in the land was all they seemed capable of doing. It might have been one of those that had destroyed the building whose debris they now stood before, before fizzling out and leaving only smoke as its trait behind. Or it may have been something else: the fireballs from the digital world that were just the start of something greater, or maybe it was just the sudden disappearance of the barrier that had caused the buildings in more vulnerable places to fall.

They couldn't even tell if it was one building or a few. All they had witnessed was rubble, and that single little girl they had managed to uncover in it. A girl they couldn't even dig out without hurting. Meramon and FlareLizarmon, while advantageous in the fire rain that had at some point ceased in to the smoke that stifled them now.

'Wallace,' Terriermon tugged at his pants leg, 'Maybe I can lift it if I digivolve.'

Wallace, who'd been staring at the dance of red beams in the sky, blinked for a moment before he understood. 'Maybe,' he said doubtfully. 'But Gargomon doesn't really have hands.'

'I can,' Lopmon said quietly.

Wallace opened his mouth to counter, before realising he couldn't. Lopmon had not digivolved beyond Child since his reincarnation, but Wallace remembered well what his Adult form looked like from their last encounter. It had been frightening then: red but unlike the red that marred the sky now – more crusty in colour…like a bleeding earth as opposed to a bleeding sunrise. And that voice so raw with pain and loss. Those eyes that had lacked recognition even as those thick lips and sharp white teeth mouthed his name over and over again.

But Lopmon had been freed from that. Reborn. Past that point already…because it had been in his Baby stage that he had been taken away from them.

'Wallace.' This time it was Lopmon tugging, and Wallace looked at him. Looked into those eyes and understood his partner was remembering the same thing, thinking about those same things. 'It'll be okay.' Blue eyes: open, willing faith and understanding. 'I'm okay. It'll be okay.'

'It'll be okay, Wallace.' That was Terriermon, joining in to support his twin. 'Nothing will happen…and if it does, we're with friends.'

He looked up at that, at Sam who offered him a grin and to Mina with her shy smile. To Cho from Macau with her tightly controlled facial expression but agreeing eyes and Kunemon hanging on to her shawl. To Alastair from Glasgow and his Gekomon straining his pipe for the slightest sound beneath the rubble. A group from all over the place that had come together in repeated shifts to try and externally maintain the barrier and filter through the amount of knowledge amassed and analysed through Koushiro's computer in the hopes that something had been overlooked. But that sort of work couldn't be done by individuals: it had to be done with a team and, for Wallace who'd never really had a team of Chosen to begin with, had found himself bonding smoothly with them.

If he couldn't call them friends by that point, he needed to rework his definition. 'All right,' he said, unclipping his digivice. It felt warm in his hands, pulsating like the heart whose beat he could suddenly hear in his ears. And Lopmon's ear wrapped around his leg was a strong sensation as well, closer than he had ever felt it. Like when Terriermon had jumped into the air; Wallace had felt the sensation of his own feet leaving the ground: that cold air scratching his throat as he moved too quickly past despite his feet having never left the ground. It was a sensation he had not felt very often since; rarely did Terriermon need to digivolve, and Lopmon's growth had been slow and tender, avoiding conflict.

When necessary, Terriermon had acted like the elder brother and protected his younger sibling, and Lopmon, or before that the Chocomon he had been, had brought the first aid kit afterward. Those were happy reincarnations of the time they'd been together growing up, back when Wallace wasn't really close with any other humans save his mother, and Chocomon and Gummymon had been his only friends in the world. But now he had other friends: Koushiro and the friend that had hacked into the Pentagon, Daisuke and the others when he met them Colorado (though he still wished that had been in happier circumstances), and now these kids he'd spent the better part of the week with, trying to save their world.

He lifted the digivice. It flashed: a white light that formed into the sphere of digivolution he'd seen so few, yet so many, times before. 'Lopmon, digivolve!'

Lopmon took a deep breath, then floated into the orb and was swallowed by it. His shadow grew. His shape changed, from the small rabbit into a taller, humanoid figure – but different than Wendimon, Wallace noticed. The new Adult kept rabbit ears like Lopmon in his silhouette, and the form as a whole seemed thinner, and more petite. And then the sphere burst and showed just how different from Wendimon the new digivolution was. Wendimon's only articles of clothing had been a bandage on his left wrist and a tri-horned hat upon his head. The rest of him was covered by red skin and ash grey fur.

But not Lopmon's new adult form. Smaller, thinner and more resembling the rabbit he had digivolved, this new one did not resemble his previous, corrupted form as well. Wallace breathed a sigh of relief at that: that drastically different appearance was final, undeniable proof. _Things really will be okay_, he thought. And, beyond that, saving the world seemed within their reach.

The digimon punched the air, showing off gauntlets instead of claws: bright passionate red, with silver braces on them. 'Turuiemon!' he yelled.

'Turuiemon,' Wallace repeated.

Cho mumbled something in her own mother-tongue in awe. 'Turuiemon,' she repeated, in her slightly accented Japanese, eyes wide. 'Blessed with the markings of the Ch'uan Fa. That hunt viruses as their mortal enemies. I thought they were only in the Chinese mountain province.'

Ch'uan Fa had something to do with Chinese martial arts if Wallace remembered correctly. And Turuiemon was certainly dressed the part with its yellow tunic and blue scarf and focused eyes.

Saving that little girl seemed within their reach. Saving their world, and the digital world, seemed beyond their reach. Because one change could give way to more. One evolution could give way to more. And Lopmon had once gone all the way to Ultimate. If they needed to use that now sleeping power of Ultimate evolution again, they could without fear. Lopmon had already moved away from that digivolution path.

**.**

If they hadn't been within Imperialdramon's barrier they may not have made it out of the palace alive, and they could only hope the barrier had, in that split second in which they'd taken flight and the force of fire had slammed down, that it had been enough to protect the palace as well. Hundreds of lives depended on that, but there was no time to check, to see. Imperialdramon had taken the full force of that attack and was spiralling towards the sand. Only the thought of their destination: the desert where nothing lived save the grave of Ken's crest and former evil, stopped him from crashing into the burning land prematurely.

But he did crash. That was inevitable, and the Chosen and remaining digimon were tossed unceremoniously into the sand as he devolved. Taichi and Yamato were the first on their feet, the first to digivolve their digimon, into WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon. The other original Chosen followed, their digimon digivolving as far as they could with the power of the digi-cores they still had: the Perfect stage. V-mon and Wormmon were helped up by their partners, preparing themselves to jogress again.

But they didn't get the chance. Demon appeared too quickly: a blur of red approaching and stopping right above, marring the ruined sky. The cloak they'd seen him in before was gone. The red was purely fire wrapping his body: fire so strong they could feel its heat where they stood.

'Chosen insects.' Even his voice was different: less reasonable, more powerful. 'I would burn you along with the remainder of this world now if it weren't for that seed you carry.'

Daisuke moved in front of Ken, and the latter's hand moved automatically to the back of his neck again, and the seed that slept quietly there.

They had learnt little about it in the end: about the dark seed. That it fed off despair. That it made a person more intellectually competent, and better at sports. That it had been responsible to the moulding of his once naïve and gentle personality into the cruel persona of the Kaiser. That it had been used by Oikawa, or Vamdemon be that as it were, to replicate and transplant into other children with despairing thoughts, so he could regain his power. But where it had come from was still a mystery; a coincidental finding, it had seemed to be, and that was what they'd had to accept it as. Because Ken could not go on thinking that seed was still active in him, still moving him as though he were a marionette and the controller of that seed held the strings. So it became a coincidental thing, otherwise the mastermind still existed, could still have been looking for him…

But it didn't matter at that point, why Demon was so interested in it. Any extra power would be even worse a disaster than what they faced, and they knew what they were currently facing was worse than they could see or imagine. If they'd had a chance they might have been able to see the circles of thin black ash where the beams of fire had struck, and around them the think skeleton of the world still trying to hang on. They might have seen a few Chosen lucky enough to escape the laser shots Demon had fired in those first few moments – not now, because he was focused entirely on the Chosen, thinking how he could extract the seed without damaging it, uncaring of anything else.

That exceeded even the Chosen's expectations. They'd hoped it would draw his attention, but to spare them instant death –

But what did that matter, when faced with such overwhelming power. He had hit Imperialdramon head on, but Imperialdramon had survived. But Demon, by the sound of things, had not been aiming for Imperialdramon. If it had, they wondered as a collective, how much stronger would that flame have been? Would any of them still be standing there?

"No" was the answer that Demon seemed to believe.

'Give me the dark seed,' Demon said finally, extending one thick clawed hand brimming with flames. 'I will give you all a merciful death if you do.'

He could watch them burn. They would scream: in pain, in fear, and in anger. That would be fuel for him, fuel he'd been robbed of in his years of imprisonment. The years that had been mere months by the flow of time in the digital world, but like an eternity for him.

Or, he mused, he could extend his claws and rip them apart, one at a time. He extended one experimentally as he heard one of the other children yell out their answer: a resounding "no" that seemed to echo across ash-covered plains.

He wasn't picky. He couldn't get too close to the boy with the seed without being sure of his control – and control was a thing he had seldom needed in the past. He went for the furthest instead: the smallest boy with his Armadillamon who had been tossed the furthest.

The two Ultimate saw him and readied their own attacks, but something fast and bright came at him before he could reach and rammed into that nail.

**.**

UlforceV-dramon flew as fast as he could, but he flew even faster when he saw the scene he was rapidly approaching. The children who'd been entrusted to them were still alive, though Imperialdramon had lost his form and WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon made up their front line. They were strong, but Demon had too many nails for them to counter and too fierce fire for them to block. The Chosen behind them would be ripped to shreds or burnt before the two Ultimate digimon could make any semblance of damage – if they could.

But they were almost at Omegamon, and what they needed to get there was in his hands: that extra boost of power and need. They had that needed. The power was what he tightly gripped as he slammed his head into Demon's long extended nail, pushed against it until he heard a crack and splinter and the lord of wrath recoiled in pain.

UlforceV-dramon staggered back, his forehead burning. If digimon could bleed he would be spurting blood, forehead slashed, but digimon did not have such a concept engraved into their cycle of injury and repair, and as such it was just a deep cut across his face that was his wound. But he felt no pain. Within him he could, instead, feel a little of the power he gripped tightly in both hands. The power that burned like the beacon of hope it was.

And Demon had nine good nails, or claws as seemed a more appropriate term, and was incensed at being interrupted. But desire for the power of the dark seed stayed his hand – slightly. It kept the fire away, because if the fire burnt the host of the dark seed to a crisp he would not be able to utilise it fresh from its soil, but he had his nails, and WarGreymon caught the next one in his own metal claws as it dove to the unseated UlforceV-dramon in an attempt to strike while the iron was hot.

But Demon had eight more claws and a completely mobile hand, and UlforceV-dramon knew he had to act fast. The digimental was still in his hands, fragile and straining against the too new solid form it wore. But that was fine. It had lasted almost as long as it had needed to. Most of the ones compatible with the golden digimental were present. One he knew was in the human world. If fate was with them, they could get to him as well. And then he could try and find the others.

Higher than a God in status, but he was not all seeing, all knowing. Another fallacy of the concept of human words it seemed: a God being infallible, all capable. Or perhaps it was their fallacy in taking such a term and applying it so dramatically out of context – but they were not monarchs of any sort: not kings, not emperors. They were too far in the background for that.

The closest thing they had to the human definition of a God was Gennai, probably. Gennai who was immortal, who had lived longer than any other being they knew and through countless repeats of the worlds until his soul had become old and frail before he tore himself apart and made himself young again. He could afford to do that then because those many worlds of knowledge and experience were a hindrance in a single body, and the work left to him was too much for one person alone. And so he split himself, so each took a portion of knowledge and experience and a piece of the work. In a way he had revived his order again – before the current threat demanded all that wisdom and more.

And the closest thing they had to godly power was what he held in his hands. Sacrifices they had unknowingly, unwittingly perhaps, prepared to make…because if those children had own how quickly being a Chosen child would kill them he couldn't help but wonder if sny would have chosen that oath at all.

And they had considered actively seeking that sacrifice… But Gennai was right. It was all unavoidable now. Unquestionable now. Once the world was saved they would have a lifetime to ask those things, and to doubt.

If they saved the world… But UlforceV-dramon chose to believe in the Chosen Children, that they could fill in the empty ending of the prophecy sith hope.

He closed his eyes and released the digimental, letting the hope and power of hundreds of Chosen and their digimon partners flood the fresh battlefield.

And the response was what they had hoped. Instantaneous digivolutions: Magnamon, Peacockmon, Elephamon, Rhinomon, Maildramon and Konguomon. All of them looking strong, breathtaking, lined with gold. The nails aimed at them were deftly caught, painstakingly snapped. Demon howled in anger, his close-range weapon lost. 'The seed,' he screamed. 'I will have it!'

The golden armour digimon prepared themselves to attack. Magnamon's cannons opened, charging in a sun that had been burnt from the sky of their world. The children held their breath in new hope and old anticipation. Quite suddenly their digimon could stand again, could get close. Last time they'd fought that fire from a great distance and still failed.

But he had not fired upon them yet, not since the untamed blast had struck Imperialdramon in his departure. That would be a whole other ballgame, against the flames of wrath. Flames so potent it seemed, that Demon fid not want to risk burning the seed to a crisp along with them. A saving grace which could also be their blindsight, their inevitable defeat.

And Demon did not seem to know the concept of panic, or the desperation that came from fear of one's life. He seemed to understand only as so far as it fuelled him, that music to his ears.

'I am growing impatient,' he growled, allowing the flames of his body to wrap around his snapped claw hands. 'Give me the dark spore now or I will burn this world right now and take it from the ashes.'

It was a game of patience and inevitability. He did not think the seed would die so quickly without its soil, and it would be all too easy to find once the approaching winds blew the costing ash away. And he quickly grew tired of nuisances. They attacked as one, and UlforceV-dramon with them, but at some point he had surpassed the Royal Knights and the light that blasted him a few feet in the sky was nothing more than a storm he could either blow away or walk against.

And it was too time consuming to walk against it, when the Chosen and that Royal Knight mocked him so.

'Do you think such pitiful powers will defeat me!' he roared, unleashing his flames like a ring around him. The digimon grabbed their humans and fled, but even they felt the heat of his wrath, and the flame. The Perfect ones tumbled roughly into the sand, the fire reaching deep and threatening to unravel their core. The others stood, but with one blast the gold lustre of the armour digivolution had been eaten away.

UlforceV-dramon clutched what power remained. Enough for a jogress he hoped. Enough for the restoration of the Royal Knights. He let it loose again, and WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon turned to him, at that point understanding and remembering the call that had beckoned them before.

Memories were such fickle things, but at least they returned when they were needed. The Royal Knights were needed now…but even with Magnamon and Omegamon and himself they were weak. They hadn't had time enough, compared to Demon. They'd made a mistake somewhere, in history, that dealt the imbalance of power now.

He hoped the other digimon could make up for that gap in power. But still it relied on the Chosen, on those Chosen that would have nothing to defend them except four Perfect digimon, wounded and on the point of reversion back to their Child states, or even lower. Within only a few minutes they'd fought a lifetime's worth.

Demon was never supposed to get that powerful, and they had let him.

And they only way they could rectify that was to take the Chosen out of immediate harm's way first. If their threat was enough to stop Demon following the dark seed, following Ken.

Omegamon felt the thought ripple in his mind, as though their minds had synchronised once again. Omegamon swept his partners up within his cloak. There was no time for anything, when Demon could lose patience and make a serious attempt to burn them at any moment. The Perfect digimon let go of their forms. There was no point holding on to them, when they couldn't fight or protect their humans, and those humans scooped them up and were swept up themselves by Omegamon. The younger ones, those ones with the golden armours, stood uncertainty for a bit before their digimon smiled. 'It'll be fine,' they seemed to say. 'We're stronger than ever, We'll take care of him.'

And all that was a flash before they resumed their attack, driving Demon a step back again and then countering the beams of fire he sent out in retaliation. It seemed even for a moment, seemed the illusion of evil, and Omegamon grabbed the last of the Chosen and jumped into the digital space.

No witness afterwards can say whether it was because of their departure that the tides changed, or it was a coincidence that marked that crucial moment of battle, but just as Omegamon's feet touched down upon the debris of the human world were the Chosen's digimon forced through, with Demon behind them.

**.**

They'd just managed to get the girl out and find her mother buried deeper in when the world trembled. Wallace looked up, wondering if Cho's Kunemon had somehow managed to digivolve into TonosamaGekomonon the way back from Koushiro's apartment. They'd sent him there, hoping for news or aid or some sort of idea about what to do. Because all they could see were huge streaks of fire crashing into various parts of the globe like missiles. But nothing near them yet, save whatever had caused the buildings around them to collapse. Sometimes they felt small shockwaves, but nothing else.

Nothing yet, but they were watching. Waiting. Preparing – mentally because there was no way to suddenly become physically strong, unless hope unlocked a digivolution powerful enough to defeat the sort of flame that was burning their world. And to fight fire, real fire instead of sparks that had spun off like before, would be different from anything they had ever fought before.

Meramon, who could do nothing in the small rescue attempt, watched each of those bits of flame and wished he could absorb them into his body instead of letting them crash where they would. _If only…_ He gasped suddenly, then cried out to his partner: words that sounded somewhat like a siren to Wallace's foreign ears.

But they must have meant something more to Mina, because she pointed at the sky, at a single dot of red growing quickly bigger. 'Meramon says that one's coming right for us.'

Time seemed to freeze for them at that point. The child, clinging to Sam's strong arm, wailed and buried herself into his chest. Terriermon whimpered and threaded his ears together, trying to calm himself, trying to find some power within himself that would allow him to digivolve far enough to fire against that flame. Turuiemon tensed his fists, ready to spring up there and punch the flames and forget the knowledge that wrote that move as a failure – because all the attacks he had were physical.

Wallace still gripped his digivice in his fists, still felt that pulsating energy: that light of digivolution. And that light burst out: engulfed Terriermon, engulfed Turuiemon. The other digivices did the same, because there was no greater threat to them than the approaching death of their partners.

The scene was too full of light and energy for them to comprehend, but either they'd noticed the fire too late or it was too quick for them. They were still caught in half forms when the fire struck. The Chosen were still clutching their digivices in a feverish prayer – different cultures united in prayer in that one moment – when the fire of hell swallowed them whole.

And Omegamon swerved and stumbled in the air, just in time to see a pair of pink studded brown ears vanish into the ash.

And then he hovered above the black and grey flakes, fragile and blown by the shockwave that followed: all the remains of Tokyo. The Chosen he carried were still safe, blind and wrapped within his cloak, free from the destruction of their homes, their loved ones – all of them gone before they could even scream, or fight.

And then those armour digimon fell from the sky and he spread his cloak, catching them all and giving the ones he already sheltered a view of Demon's descent, and the fireworks he cast. And Omegamon couldn't hear a breath of life upon the earth. What remained of the humans would be hiding, waiting for the next inevitable strike, and then that final strike which would take the last of their world.

He held five rookie digimon. Only Magnamon and UlforceV-dramon remained. But as Demon approached he could make out wounds, make out a stronger anger and impatience. They had managed to damage Demon.

Hopefully that would be enough for the Royal Knights to finish the job. And he would be back to help them. If time was kind it would be seconds, or even less. But he could not take what remained of the human race into that battle. With his restoration as a Royal Knight he also recalled the wealth of knowledge that came with it, and that prophecy.

Demon would survive. That was unavoidable. Not even the miracles of the Chosen could rewrite prophecies written so clearly into stone. The Royal Knights would fall. That was also written. But in doing so they could open up the path for the Chosen, for that final victory.

They had wanted to save their world. But if they could save one part of the world the rest of it could be born once again.

He took off into the digital space again, this time plunging deeper into it, into a path he barely remembered but still instinctively understood, weighed down by twelve Chosen and nine digimon and searching for somewhere that could keep alive their hope.


End file.
